They knocked us both senseless, and then began hacking our machine to pieces with their huge _balas_ (yataghans).

They thought our plane was some gigantic bird.
"Superstition festers in their very bones! The giant bird, they believed, would ruin their date crops; and, besides, they thirsted for the blood of the Franks.

As a matter of fact, my Captain, these people do sometimes drink a little of the blood of a slaughtered enemy." "Impossible!" "True, I tell you! They destroyed our plane with fire and sword, reviled us as pigs and brothers of pigs, and named poor Lebon 'kalb ibn kalb,' or 'dog and son of a dog.' Then they separated into two bands.

One band departed toward Wady Tawarik, taking Lebon.

They informed me that on the morrow they would crucify him on a cross of palm-wood, head downward." "And they executed Lebon ?" Leclair shrugged his shoulders.
"I suppose so," he answered with great bitterness.