id="id00225">A slight disturbance at the door interrupted him. He frowned, and rapped on the table, for silence. The disturbance, however, continued. Someone was trying to enter there against Rrisa's protests.

"I did not bring you up, sir," the Arab was saying, in broken English.
"You cannot come in! How did you get here?"

"I'm not in the habit of giving explanations to subordinates, or of bandying words with them," replied the man, in a clear, rather high-pitched but very determined voice. The company, gazing at him, saw a slight, well-knit figure of middle height or a little less, in aviator's togs. "I'm here to see your master, my good fellow, not you!"

The man at the head of the table raised a finger to his lips, in signal of silence from them all, and beckoned the Arab.

"Let him come in!" he ordered, in Rrisa's vernacular.

"A, M'almé" submitted the desert man, standing aside and bowing as the stranger entered. The Master added, in English:

"If he comes as a friend and helper, uninvited though he be, we welcome him. If as an enemy, traitor, or spy, we can deal justice to him in short order. Sir, advance!"

The stranger came to the foot of the table. Men made way for him. He stood there a moment in silence, dropped his gauntlets on the table and seemed peering at the Master. Then all at once he drew himself up, sharply, and saluted.

The Master returned the salute. A moment's silence followed. No man was looking elsewhere than at this interloper.

Not much could be seen of him, so swaddled was he in sheepskin jacket, aviator's helmet, and goggles. Leather trousers and leggings completed his costume. The collar of the jacket, turned up, met the helmet. Of his face, only the chin and lower part of the cheeks remained visible.

The silence tautened, stretched to the breaking-point. All at once the master of Niss'rosh demanded, incisively:

"Your name, sir?"

"Captain Alfred Alden, of the R.A.F."

"Royal Air Force man, eh? Are you prepared to prove that?"

"I am."

"If you're not, well—this won't be exactly a salubrious altitude for you."

"I have my papers, my licenses, my commission."

"With you here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well," answered the Master, "I will examine them in due time.
English, American, or—?"

"I am a Canadian." answered the aviator. "I have seen nearly two years' active service. I rank as an ace. I bear three wounds and have been cited several times. I have the Distinguished Service Cross. What more need I tell you, sir?"

His voice was steady and rang true. The Master nodded approval, that seemed to echo round the room in a buzz of acceptance. But there were still other questions to be asked. The next one was:

"How did you come here? It's obvious my man didn't bring you up."

"I came in my own plane, sir," the stranger answered, in a dead hush of stillness. "It just now landed on the roof of this building. If you will draw the curtains, there behind you, I believe you can see it for yourself."

"I heard no engine."

"I volplaned in. I don't say this to boast sir, but I can handle the average plane as accurately as most men handle their own fingers."

"Were you invited to attend this meeting by either Major Bohannan or by me?"

"No, sir, I was not."

"Then, why are you here?"

"Why am I here? For exactly the same reason that all the rest are here, sir!" The aviator swept his arm comprehensively at the ranks of eagerly listening men. "To resume active service. To get back to duty. To live, again! In short, to join this expedition and to share all its adventures!"

"Hm! Either that, or to interfere with us."

"Not the latter, sir! I swear that!"

"How did you know there was going to be an expedition, at all?" demanded the Master, his brows tensed, lips hard, eyes very keen. The aviator seemed smiling, as he answered:

"I know many things. Some may be useful to you all. I am offering you my skill and knowledge, such as they may be, without any thought or hope of reward."

"Why?"

"Because I am tired of life. Because I want—must have—the freedom of the open roads, the inspiration of some great adventure! Surely, you understand."

"Yes, if what you say is true, and you are not a spy. Show us your face, sir!"

The aviator loosened his helmet and removed it, disclosing a mass of dark hair, a well-shaped head and a vigorous neck. Then he took off his goggles.

A kind of communal whisper of astonishment and hostility ran round the apartment. The man's whole face—save for eyeholes through which dark pupils looked strangely out—was covered by a close-fitting, flesh-colored celluloid mask.

This mask reached from the roots of his hair to his mouth. It sloped away down the left jaw, and somewhat up the cheekbone of the right side. The mask was firmly strapped in place around the head and neck.

"What does all this mean, sir?" demanded the Master, sharply. "Why the mask?"

"Is that a necessary question, sir?" replied the aviator, while a buzz of curiosity and suspicion rose. "You have seen many such during the war and since its close."

"Badly disfigured, are you?"

"That word, 'disfigured,' does not describe it, sir. Others have wounds, but my whole face is nothing but a wound. No, let me put it more accurately—there is, practically speaking, no face at all. The gaping cavity that exists under this mask would certainly sicken the strongest men among you, and turn you against me.

"We can't tolerate what disgusts, even if its qualities be excellent. In exposing myself to you, sir, I should certainly be insuring my rejection. But what you cannot see, what you can only imagine, will not make you refuse me."

The Master pondered a moment, then nodded and asked:

"Is it so very bad, sir?"

"It's a thing of horror, incredible, awful, unreal! In the hospital at Rouen, they called me 'The Kaiser's Masterpiece.' Some of the most hardened surgeons couldn't look at me, or dress my—wound, let us call it—without a shudder. Ordinary men would find me intolerable, if they could see me.

"Unmasked, I bear no resemblance whatever to a man, but rather to some ghastly, drug-inspired dream or nightmare of an Oriental Dante. The fact that I have sacrificed my human appearance in the Great Cause cannot overcome the shrinking aversion that normal men would feel, if they could see me. I say only this, that my mutilation is indescribable. As the officer and gentleman I know you to be, you won't ask me to expose this horror!"

CHAPTER IV

THE MASKED RECRUIT

A little silence lengthened, while the strange aviator continued to peer out with strangely shining eyes through the holes of his mask. The effect of that human intelligence, sheltered in there behind that expressionless celluloid, whose frail thinness they all knew covered unspeakable frightfulness, became uncanny.

Some of the men eased the tension by blowing ribbons of smoke or by relighting tobacco that had gone out while the stranger had been talking. Others shifted, a bit uneasily. Voices began to mutter, pro and con. The Master suddenly knocked again, for