The Master detailed Simonds, L'Heureux, and Seres to construct a still, which they did in only a little more than three hours.
The apparatus was ingeniously and efficiently built, out of two large provision tins and some piping which they got--together with a few tools--by swimming out to the air-liner.

The still, with a brisk fire under it, proved capable of converting sea-water into flat, tasteless fresh water at the rate of two quarts an hour.

Thirsty they might all get, to desperation; but with this supply they could survive till better could be had.
While the distilling apparatus was being built, work was already under way on _Nissr_; work which old Abd el Rahman watched with beady eyes of hate; work in which Dr.Lombardo, fellow-partner in Kloof's guilt, was allowed to share--the condition being frankly stated to him that his punishment was merely being deferred.
Under the Master's direction, stout mooring-piles of driftwood were sunk into the dunes, block-and-tackle gear was improvised, and lines were rove to the airship.

She was lightened by shoveling several tons of sand from her and by removing everything easily detachable; the men working in baths of sweat, with a kind of ardent abandon.
Enough power was still left in her storage-batteries to operate the air-pressure system through the floats.

This air, with a huge boiling and seething of the white surf, loosened the floats from the cling of the sand; and a score of men at the tackles succeeded at high-tide in hauling _Nissr_ far up on the beach.
Rough gear, broken ship, toiling men blind with sweat, blazing African sun, appalling isolation, vultures and jackals at work behind the dunes, and--back of all--ocean and Sahara, made a picture fit for any master-painter.