Would they be lucky enough to locate the kingdom of Abu Ja‘ Kub ben Ishak? He repeated the name of the Black’s owner again … Abu Ja‘ Kub ben Ishak. It was important that he remember that name; he had said it over and over again since Abu had departed with the Black. That was the only clue they had to the stallion’s whereabouts; that, and the knowledge that Abu lived in the least explored district of Arabia, the Kharj district, far to the east across the Great Central Desert. It wasn’t much. Alec closed his eyes and thought about his horse.

The steward awakened Alec sometime later. “You were interested in night landings yesterday,” he said. “It’ll only be a few minutes. You can see the lights of Natal just ahead.”

Sleepily, Alec flattened his nose against the window. It was very dark and they were quite low. Below he could just make out a long, winding river which they were following. He turned toward Henry and Mr. Volence and noticed that they were fastening their seat belts. Drawing his own tightly about him, he said, “This is going to be good. How in the devil will he be able to see? That’s a river, isn’t it? Is he going to land in it?”

“That’s the Rio Grande do Norte,” Mr. Volence explained. “The base is on it, and if you look a few miles ahead you’ll be able to see the landing lights which will guide the pilot in making his landing.”

Alec again turned to the window. Ahead, as Mr. Volence had said, was a string of lights on the river. There were seven groups of them and each group was a small, circular glowing ring. The one nearest the plane was red, but all the others were green. “The pilot will land alongside them,” Mr. Volence explained, “just to the right. Watch.”

The plane was now nearing the group of red lights. Alec peered into the inky darkness of the jungle on the other side of the river. They were coming in fast and just over the river. Sweeping past the red lights, the silver bird struck the water and proceeded swiftly up the line.

Henry sat back in his seat and relaxed. “Nothin’ to it,” he mumbled.

At the base they went through the same procedure as at Port of Spain, and then were sped away to Natal to spend the night. “Tomorrow,” Alec reminded Henry, “it’s Africa!” They were well on their way to the home of the Black!

The following days proved monotonous to all the passengers except Alec and Henry. Together they shared the thrill of flying the Atlantic for the first time. Before nightfall they were on the African continent and based at Fish Lake, Liberia.