His only trouble was the thought that perhaps the expedition of the Flying Legion had ended before it had really begun.
"What chance, sir ?" he insisted.

"It's damned bad, according to my way of thinking." "What you think and what you say won't have any weight with this problem of aerial flotation," the Master curtly retorted.

"If we make land, we make it, that's all, sir." He relapsed into silence.

Leclair muttered, in Arabic--his words audible only to himself--an ancient Islamic proverb: "Allah knows best, and time will show!" Then, after a moment's pause, the single word: "Kismet!" Silence again, in which the Master's brain reviewed the stirring incidents of the past hour and a half--how the stowaway had evaded Dr.Lombardo's vigilance and (thoroughly familiar with every detail of _Nissr_) had succeeded in making his way to the aft port fuel-tank, from which he had probably drained petrol through a pet-cock and thereafter set it afire; how the miscreant had then scrambled up the aft companion-ladder, to shoot down the Master himself; and how only a horrible, nightmare fight against the flames had saved even this shattered wreck of the air-liner.
It had all been Kloof's fault, of course, and Lombardo's.

Those two had permitted this disaster to befall, and--yes, they should be punished, later.