"Yes, sir. But you know only two of the detachable tanks are left."
"Two will suffice. Have them both lowered, together with the electric-drive pump. Don't annoy me with petty details. You are in charge of this job now. Attend to it!"
He passed into the pilot-house, leaned at the window and with his glasses inspected the deep green patch, dark as the profoundest sea, that marked the oasis. A little blind village nestled there, with mud-brick huts, a watch-tower and a tiny minaret; date-grounds and fields of corn, melons, and other vegetables spread a green fringe among the groves.
As Nissr slowed near the oasis, the frightened Arabs—who had been at theirghanda, or mid-day meal—swarmed into the open. They left their mutton,cous-cous, date-paste, and lentils, their chibouques with perfumed vapor and their keef-smoking, and manifested extreme fear by outcries in shrill voices. Under the shadows of the palms, that stood like sentinels against the blistering sands, they gathered, with wild cries.
No fighting-men, these. The glasses disclosed that they were mostly old men, women, children. Young men were few. The fighters had probably gone with the caravan, seen a while before. There came a little ragged firing; but a round of blanks stopped that, and sent the villagers skurrying back into the shelter of the palms, mimosas, and jamelon trees.
Nissrpoised at seven hundred and fifty feet and let down tanks, nacelle, and men. There was no resistance. The localnaibcame with trembling, to make salaam. Water was freely granted, from thesebil, or public fountain—an ancient tank with century-deep grooves cut in its solid stone rim by innumerable camel-hair ropes. The flying men put down a hose, threw the switch of the electric pump, and in a few minutes half emptied the fountain. The astonishment of the villagers passed all bounds.
"These be men of great magic," said thenaib, to Rrisa, after the tanks had been hoisted toNissr, and a dozen sacks of fresh dates had been purchased for the trinkets plus tworyals(about two dollars). "Tell me of these 'People of the Books!'"
"I will tell thee of but one thing, Abu Shawarib," (father of whiskers) answered Rrisa with pride. "Old Abd el Rahman is our prisoner in the flying ship above. We are taking him back to Mecca. All his people of the Beni Harb lie dead far toward the great waters, on the edge of the desert of the sea. The Great Pearl Star we also have. That too returneth to the Haram.Allah isélmak!" (Thanks be to Allah!)
Thenaibprostrated himself, with joyful cries, and touched lips and forehead with quivering fingers. All others who heard the news, did likewise. Fruits, pomegranate, syrup, honey, andjild el faras[1] were brought as offerings of gratitude. The crew ascended to the air-liner amid wild shouts of praise and jubilation.
[Footnote 1: Literally "mare's skin." Apricot paste in dried sheets, cut into convenient sizes. A great dainty among the Arabs.]
"You see, Leclair?" the Master inquired, asNissrdrew away once more to eastward, leaving the village in the palms behind. "We hold power already with the sons of Islam! What will it be when—?"
"When you attempt to take from them their all, instead of returning to them what they so eagerly desire to have!" the Frenchman put in. "Let us hope all for the best, my Captain, but let us keep our powder very dry!"
Two days and one night of steady flying over the ocean of sand, with but an occasional oasis or caravan to break the appalling wastes of emptiness, broughtNissrto the Valley of the Nile. The river of hoar antiquity came to view in a quivering heat-haze, far to eastward. In anticipation of possible attack,Nissrwas forced to her best altitude, of now forty-seven hundred feet, all gun-stations were manned and the engines were driven to their limit. The hour was anxious; but the Legion passed the river in safety, just a little south of the twentieth degree, near the Third Cataract. Bohannan's gloomy forebodings proved groundless.
The Red Sea and Arabia were now close at hand. Tension increased. Rrisa thrilled with a malicious joy. He went to the door of the captive Sheik, and in flowery Arabic informed him the hour of reckoning was at last drawing very near.
"Thou carrion!" he exclaimed. "Soon shalt thou be in the hands of the Faithful. Soon shall Allah make thy countenance cold, O offspring of a one-eyed man!"
Three hours after, the air-liner sighted a dim blue line that marked the Red Sea. The Master pointed at this, with a strange smile.
"Once we pass that sea," he commented, "our goal is close. The hour of great things is almost at hand!"
"Provided we get some petrol," put in Bohannan.
"Faith, an open gate, that should have been closed, defeated Napoleon.A few hundred gallons of gasoline—"
"The gasoline is already in sight, Major," smiled the chief, his glasses on the coastline. "That caravan—see there?—comes very apropos."
The Legion bore down with a rush on the caravan—a small one, not above fifty camels, but well laden. The cameleers left off crying "Ooosh! Ooosh!" and beating their spitting beasts with theirmas'hab-sticks, and incontinently took to their heels. Rrisa viewed them with scorn, as he went down in the nacelle with a dozen of the crew.
The work of stripping the caravan immediately commenced. In an hour some five hundred tin cases of petrol had been hoisted aboard. On the last trip down, the Master sent a packet wrapped in white cloth, containing a fair money payment for the merchandise. British goods, he very wisely calculated, could not be commandeered without recompense The packet was lashed to a camel-goad which was driven into the sand, andNissronce more got slowly under way.
All eyes were now on the barren chalk and sandstone coasts of the Red Sea, beyond which dimly rose the castellated peaks of Jebel Radhwa. At an altitude of 2,150 feet the air-liner slid out over the Sea, the waters of which shone in the mid-afternoon sun with a peculiar luminosity. Only a fewsambuks, or native craft, troubled those historic depths; though, down in the direction of Bab el Mandeb—familiar land to the Master—a smudge of smoke told of some steamer beating up toward Suez.
Leaning from the upper port gallery, the Master with Bohannan, Leclair, and "Captain Alden," watched the shadow of the giant air-liner sliding over the tawny sand-bottom. That shadow seemed a scout going on before them, spying out the way to Arabia and to Mecca, the Forbidden City. To the white men that shadow was only a shadow. To Rrisa, who watched it from the lower gallery, it portended ominous evil.
"It goes ahead of us, by Allah!" he murmured. "Into the Empty Abodes, where the sons of Feringistan would penetrate, a shadow goes first! And that is not good." He whispered a prayer, then added: "For the others, I care not. But my Master—his life and mine are bound with the cords of Kismet. And in the shadows I see darkness for all!"
At 4:27,Nissrpassed the eastern shores of the Red Sea. Arabia itself now lay beneath. There exposed to their eyes, at length lay the land of mystery and fear. Bare and rock-ribbed, a flayed skeleton of a terrain, it glowed with wondrous yellow, crimson, and topaz hues. A haze bounded the south-eastern horizon, where a range of iron hills jaggedly cut the sky. Mecca was almost at hand.
The Master entered his cabin and summoned Rrisa.
"Listen," he commanded. "We are now approaching the Holy City. I am bringing back the Apostate Sheik and the Great Pearl Star. I am the preserver of the Star. Thine own people could not keep it. I have recovered it. Is that not true?"
"True,M'almé, praise to Allah!"
"It may be that I shall be called on to preserve some other and still more sacred thing. If so, remember that my salt is still in thy stomach."
"Master, I will not forget." Rrisa spoke dutifully, but his eyes were troubled. His face showed lines of fear, of the struggle already developing in his soul.
"Go thou, then! And remember that whatever happens, my judgment tells me it is best. Raise not a hand of rebellion against me, Rrisa, to whom thou owest life itself. To thy cabin—go!"
"But, Master—"
"Ru'c'h halla!"
The Arab salaamed and departed, with a strange look in his eyes.
When he was gone, the Master called Bohannan and Leclair, outlined the nextcoupin this strange campaign, and assigned crews to them for the implacable carrying-out of the plan determined on—surely the most dare-devil, ruthless, and astonishing plan ever conceived by the brain of a civilized man.
Hardly had these preparations been made, when the sound of musketry-fire, below and ahead, drew their attention. From the open ports of the cabin, peering far down, the three Legionaries witnessed an extraordinary sight—a thing wholly incongruous in this hoar land of mystery and romance.
Skirting a line of low savage hills that ruggedly stretched from north to south, a gleaming line of metal threaded its way. A train, southbound for Mecca, had halted on the famous Pilgrims' Railway. From its windows and doors, white-clad figures were violently gesticulating. Others were leaping from the train, swarming all about the carriages.
An irregular fusillade, harmless as if from pop-guns, was being directed against the invading Eagle of the Sky. A faint, far outcry of passionate voices drifted upward in the heat and shimmer of that Arabian afternoon. The train seemed a veritable hornets' nest into which a rock had been heaved.
"Faith, but that's an odd sight," laughed the major. "Where else in all this world could you get a contrast like that—the desert, a semibarbarous people, and a railroad?"
"Nowhere else," put in Leclair. "There is no other road like that, anywhere in existence. The Damascus-Mecca line is unique; a Moslem line built by Moslems, for Moslems only Modern mechanism blent with ancient superstition and savage ferocity that implacably hold to the very roots of ancient things!"
"It is the Orient, Lieutenant," added the Master. "And in the Orient, who can say that any one thing is stranger than anything else? To your stations, men!"
They took their leave. The Master entered the pilot-house and assumed control. AsNissrpassed over the extraordinary Hejaz Railway, indifferent to the mob of frenzied, vituperating pilgrims, the chief peered far ahead for his first sight of Mecca, the Forbidden.
He had not long to wait. On the horizon, the hills seemed suddenly to break away. As the air-liner roared onward, a dim plain appeared, with here or there a green-blue blur of oasis and with a few faint white spots that the Master knew were pilgrims' camping-places.
Down through this plain extended an irregular depression, a kind of narrow valley, with a few sharply isolated, steep hills on either hand.
The Master's eyes gleamed. His jaw set; his hand, on the controls, tightened till the knuckles whitened.
"The Valley of Mina!" he exclaimed. "Mount Arafat—and there, beyond, lies Mecca!Labbayk! Labbayk!"
The descent of the giant air-liner and her crew of masterful adventurers on the Forbidden City had much the quality of a hawk's raid on a vast pigeon-cote. AsNissr, now with slowed engines loomed down the Valley of Sacrifice, a perfectly indescribable hurricane of panic, rage, and hate surged through all the massed thousands who had come from the farthest ends of Islam to do homage to the holy places of the Prophet.
The outraged Moslems, in one fierce burst of passion against the invading Feringi, began to swarm like ants when the stone covering their ant-hill is kicked over. From end to end of the valley, a howling tumult arose.
On the Darb el Ma'ala, or Medina Road, a caravan bearing the annualmahmalgift of money, jewels, fine fabrics, and embroidered coverings for the Ka'aba temple, cut loose with rifles and old blunderbusses. Dogs began to bark, donkeys to bray, camels to spit and snarl. The whole procession fell into an anarchy of hate and fear.
The vast camp of conical white tents in the Valley of Mina spewed out uncounted thousands ofHujjaj(pilgrims), each instantly transformed into a blood-lusting fiend. From the Hill of Arafat; from Jannat el Ma'ale Cemetery; from the dun, bronzed, sun-baked city of a hundred thousand fanatic souls; from the Haram sanctuary itself where mobs of pilgrims were crowded round the Ka'aba and the holy Black Stone; from latticed balcony and courtyard, flat roof, mosque, and minaret, screams of rage shrilled up into the baked air, quivering under the intense sapphire of the desert sky.
Every crowded street of the bowl-shaped city, all converging toward the Sacred Enclosure of the Haram, every caravanserai and square, became a mass of howlingghuzzat, or fighters for the faith. Mecca and its environs, outraged as never before in the thousands of years of its history, instantly armed itself and made ready for aJihad, or holy war of extermination.
Where the Ahl Bayt, or People of the Black Tents, had tamely enough submitted to the invaders, these Ahl Hayt, or People of the Walls, leaped to arms, eager for death if that could be had in the battle against the infidel dog—for death, so, meant instant bearing up to Paradise, to cool fountains and sweet fruits, and to the caresses of the seventy entrancing houris that each good Moslem has had promised him by "The Strong Book," Al Koran.
Every man and boy in all that tremendous multitude spread over many square miles of rocky, sun-blistered aridity, seized whatever came first to hand, for the impending war, as the black shadow ofNissrlagged down toward the city and the Haram. Some snatched rifles, some pistols; others brandished spears and well-greasednebutclubs, six feet long and deadly in stout hands. Even camel-sticks and tent-poles were furiously flung aloft. Pitiful, impotent defiance, no more effective than the waving of ants' antennae against the foot that kicks their nest to bits!
Screams, curses, execrations in a score of tongues mounted in one frenzied chorus. Swarms of white-robed pilgrims came running in masses after the drifting shadow, knocking each other down, falling aver tent-pegs, stampeding pack-animals. The confusion amazed the Legionaries as they watched all this excitement through their powerful glasses.
"It looks," thought the Master, with a smile, "as if our little surprise-party might be a lively affair. Well, I am ready for it. 'Allah knows best, and time will show!'"
All over the plain and through the city, myriads of little white puffs, drifting down-wind, showed the profusion of firing. Now came the boom of a cannon from the Citadel—an unshotted gun, used only for calling the Faithful to prayer. Its booming echo across the plain and up against the naked, reddish-yellow hills, still further whipped the blood-frenzy of the mad mobs.
Even the innumerable pigeons, "Allah's announcers,"[1] swirled in clouds from the arcades, mosques, and minarets surrounding the Haram, and from the Ka'aba itself, and began winging erratic courses all about the Forbidden City. Men, birds, and animals alike, all shared the terror of this unheard-of outrage when—according to ancient prophesy—the Great Devils of Feringistan should desecrate the holy places.
[Footnote 1: So called because of their habit of cooing and bowing.Moslems fancy they are praying to Allah and making salaam to him.]
"Slow her!" commanded the Master into the engine-room phone, and began compensating with the helicopters, asNissrlagged over the crowded city. "Shut off—let her drift! Stand by to reverse!"
Mecca the Unattainable now lay directly beneath, its dun roofs, packed streets, ivory minarets all open to the heretics' gaze from portholes, from the forward observation pit and from the lower gallery. AsNissreased herself down to about one thousand feet, the plan of the city became visible as on a map. The radiating streets all started from the Haram. White mobs were working themselves into frenzy, trampling the pilgrims' shrouds that had been dipped in the waters of the well, Zem Zem, and laid out to dry.
Not even the Master's aplomb could suppress a strange gleam in his eye, could keep his face from paling a little or his lips from tightening, as he now beheld the inmost shrine of two hundred and thirty million human beings. Nor did any of the Legionaries, bold as they were, look upon it without a strange contraction of the heart. As for the Apostate Sheik, that old jackal of the desert was crouched in his place of confinement, with terror clutching at his soul; with visions of being torn to pieces by furious Sunnite mobs oppressing him.
And Rrisa, what of him? Shut into his cabin, with the door locked against intrusion, he was lying face downward on the metal floor, praying. For the first time in the world's history, a Moslem'skiblah, or direction of prayer, was directly downward!
"Reverse!" ordered the Master. Nissr hovered exactly above the Haram enclosure. "Lower to five hundred feet, then hold her!"
The air-liner sank slowly, with a hissing of air-intakes into the vacuum-floats, and hung there, trembling, quivering with the slow back-revolution of her screws, the swift energy of her helicopters. The Master put her in charge of Janina, the Serbian ace, and descended to the lower gallery.
Here he found the crew assembled by Bohannan and Leclair ready for the perilous descent they were about to make.
He leaned over the rail, unmindful of the ragged patter of bullets from below, and with a judicial eye observed the prospect. His calm contrasted forcibly with the frenzied surging of the pilgrim mobs below, a screaming, raging torrent of human passion.
Clearly he could discern every detail of the city whereof Mohammed wrote in the second chapter of the Koran: "So we have made you the center of the nations that you should bear witness to men." He could see the houses of dark stone, clustering together on the slopes like swallows' nests, the unpaved streets, theMesjid el Haram, or sacred square, enclosed by a great wall and a colonnade surmounted by small white domes.
At the corners of this colonnade, four tall white minarets towered toward the sky—minarets from which now a pretty lively rifle-fire was developing. A number of small buildings were scattered about the square; but all were dominated by the black impressive cube of the Ka'aba itself, theBayt Ullà h, or Allah's house.
The Master gave an order. Ferrara obeying it, brought from his cabin a piece of apparatus the Master had but perfected in the last two days of flight over the Sahara. This the Master took and clamped to the rail.
"Captain Alden," said he, "stand by, at the engine-room phone from this gallery, here, to order any necessary adjustments as weights are dropped or raised. Keep the ship at constant altitude as well as position. Major Bohannan and Lieutenant Leclair, are your crews ready for the descent?"
"Yes, sir," the major answered. "Oui, mon capitaine," replied theFrenchman.
"Tools all ready? Machine-guns installed? Yes? Very well. Open the trap, now, and swing the nacelle by the electric crane and winch. Right! Steady!"
The yells of rage and hate from below were all this time increasing in volume and savagery. Quite a pattering of rifle-bullets had developed against the metal body of the lower gallery and—harmlessly glancing—against the fuselage.
Smiling, the Master once more peered over. He seemed, as indeed he was, entirely oblivious to any fear. Too deeply had the Oriental belief of Kismet, of death coming at the appointed hour and no sooner, penetrated his soul, to leave any place there for the perils of chance.
The swarming Haram enclosure presented one of the most extraordinary spectacles ever witnessed by human eyes. The strangeness of the scene, witnessed under the declining sun of that desert land, was heightened by the fact that all these furious Moslems were seen from above. Men cease to appear human, at that angle. They seem to be only heads, from which legs and arms flail out grotesquely.
The Haram appeared to have become a vast pool of brown faces and agitated whiteihrams(pilgrim robes) of weaving brown hands, of gleaming weapons. This pool, roaring to heaven, showed strange, violent currents in flow and refluent ebb of hate.
To descend into that maelstrom of frenzied murder-lust took courage of the highest order. But neither Bohannan nor the Frenchman had even paled. Not one of their men showed any hesitancy whatever.
"Ready, sir," said the major, crisply. "Faith, give the signal and down we go; and we'll either bring back what we're going after, or we'll all come back and report ourselves dead!"
"Just a minute, Major," the Master answered. He had opened a small door of the box containing the apparatus he had just clamped to the rail, and had taken out a combination telephone earpiece and receiver. With this at mouth and ear, he leaned over the rail. His lips moved in a whisper inaudible even to those in the lower gallery with him.
An astonishing change, however, swept over the infuriated mob in the Haram and throughout the radiating streets. One would have thought a bolt from heaven had struck the Moslems dumb. The angry tumult died; the vast hush that rose toNissrwas like a blow in the face, so striking was its contrast with the previous uproar. Most of the furious gesticulation ceased, also. All those brown-faced fanatics remained staring upward, silent in a kind of thunder-struck amazement.
The major, peering down through the trap, swore luridly. Leclair muttered something to himself, with wrinkled brow. "Captain Alden's" eyes blinked strangely, through the holes of the mask. The others stared in frank astonishment.
"What the devil, sir—?" began the major; but the chief held up his hand for silence. Again he spoke whisperingly into the strange apparatus. This time a murmur rose to him; a murmur increasing to a confused tumult, that in an angry wave of malediction beat up about Nissr as she hung there with spinning helicopters, over the city.
The Master smiled as he put up the receiver in the little box and closed the door with a snap. Regretfully he shook his head.
"These Arabic gentlemen,et ál," he remarked, "don't seem agreeably disposed to treat with us on a basis of exchanging the Sheik Abd el Rahman for what we want from them. My few remarks in Arabic, via this etheric megaphone, seem to have met a rebuff. Every man in the Haram, the minarets, the arcade, and the radiating streets heard every word I said, gentlemen, as plainly as if I had spoken directly into his ear. Yet no sound at all developed here."
"The principle is parallel to that of an artillery shell that only bursts when it strikes, and might be extremely useful in warfare, if properly developed—as I haven't had time, yet, to develop it. No matter about that, though. My proposal has been rejected. Peace having been declined, we have no alternative but to use other, means. There is positively no way of coming to an agreement with our Moslem friends, below."
As if to corroborate his statement, a rifle-bullet whistled through the open trap and flattened itself against the metal underbody of the fuselage, over their heads. It fell almost at "Captain Alden's" feet. She picked it up and pocketed it.
"My first bit of Arabia," said she. "Worth keeping."
The firing, below, had now become more general than ever. Shrill cries rose to Allah for the destruction of these infidel flying dogs. The Master paid no more heed to them than to the buzzing of so many bees.
"I think, Major," said he, "we shall have to use one of the two kappa-ray bombs on these Arabic gentry. It's rather too bad we haven't more of them, and that the capsules are all gone."
"Pardon me, my Captain," put in Leclair, "but the paralysis-vibrations, eh? As you did to me, why not to them?"
"Impossible. The way we're crippled, now, I haven't the equipment. But I shall nevertheless be able to show you something, Lieutenant. Major will you kindly drop one of the kappa-rays?"
He gestured at two singular-looking objects that stood on the metal floor of the lower gallery, about six feet from the trap. Cubical objects they were, some five inches on the edge, each enclosed in what seemed a tough, black, leather-like substance netted with stout white cords that were woven together into a handle at the top.
Strong as Bohannan was, his face grew red, with swollen veins in forehead and neck, as he tried to lift this small object. Nothing in the way of any known substance could possibly have weighed so much; not even solid lead or gold.
"Faith!" grunted the major. "What the devil? These two little metal boxes didn't weigh a pound apiece when—ugh!—when we packed 'em in our bags. How about it, chief?"
The Master smiled with amusement.
"They weren't magnetized then, Major," he answered. "Shall I have someone help you?"
"No, by God! I'll either lift this thing or die, right here!" the Celt panted, redder still. But he did not lift the little cube. The best he could do was to drag it, against mighty resistance, to the edge of the trap; and with a last, mighty heave, project it into space.
As it left the trap,Nissrrocked and swayed, showing how great a weight had been let drop. Down sped the little, netted cube, whirling in the sunlight. Its speed was almost that of a rifle-ball—so far in excess of anything that could have been produced by gravitation as to suggest that some strange, magnetic force was hurling it earthward, like a metal-filing toward an electro-magnet. It dwindled to nothing, in a second, and vanished.
All peered over the rail, eager with anticipation. No explosion followed, but the most astonishing thing happened. All at once, without any preliminary disturbance, the ground became white. A perfect silence fell on the Haram and the city for perhaps half a mile on all sides of the sacred enclosure Haram and streets, roof-tops, squares all looked as if suddenly covered with deep snow.
This whiteness, however, was not snow, but was produced by theihramsof the pilgrims now coming wholly to view.
Instead of gazing down on the heads of the multitude—all bare heads, as the Prophet commands for pilgrims—the Legionaries now found themselves looking at their whole bodies. Every pilgrim in sight had instantaneously fallen to the earth, on the gravel of the Haram, along the raised walks from the porticoes to the Ka'aba, on the marble tiling about the Ka'aba itself, even in the farthest visible streets.
The white-clad figures lay piled on each other in grotesque attitudes and heaps. Even the stone tank at the north-west side of the Ka'aba, under the famous Myzab, or Golden Waterspout on the Ka'aba roof, was heaped full of them; and all round the sacred Zem Zem well they lay in silent windrows, reaped down by some silent, invisible force.
In the remote suburbs and out on the plain, the Legionaries' binoculars could still see a swarming of white figures; but all the immediate vicinity was now wholly silent, motionless. To and fro the Master swept his glasses, and nodded with satisfaction.
"You have now fifteen minutes, men," said he, "before the paralyzing shock of that silent detonation—that noiseless release of molecular energies which does not kill nor yet destroy consciousness in the least—will pass away. So—"
"You mean to tell me, my Captain,those pilgrims are still conscious?" demanded Leclair, amazed.
"Perfectly. They will see, hear, and know all you do. I wish them to. The effect will be salutary, later. But they cannot move or interfere. All you have to look out for is the incoming swarm of fanatics already on the move. So there is no time to be lost. Into the nacelle, and down with you!"
"But if they try to rush us you can drop the other bomb, can't you?" demanded the major, as they all clambered into the nacelle.
The Master smiled, as he laid his hands on top of the basket and cast his eyes over the equipment there, noting that machine-guns, pick-axes, crowbars, and all were in position.
"The idea does you credit, Major," said he. "The fact that the other bomb would of course completely paralyze you and your men, here, is naturally quite immaterial. Let us have no more discussion, please. Only fourteen minutes, thirty seconds now remain before theHujjajwill begin to recover their muscular control. You have your work cut out for you, the next quarter-hour!"
The Master raised his hand in signal to Grison, at the electric winch A turn of a lever, and the nacelle rose from the metals of the lower gallery. It swung over the trap and was steadied there, a moment, by many hands. The raiding-party leaped in.
"Lower away!" commanded the chief
Smoothly the winch released the fine steel cable, with a purring sound. Down shot the nacelle, steadily, swiftly, with the major, Leclair, and the others now engaged in the most perilous, dare-devil undertaking imaginable.
Down, swiftly down, to raid theBayt Ullah, the sacred Ka'aba, holy of holies to more than two hundred million Moslem fanatics, each of whom would with joy have died to keep the hand of the unbelieving dog from so much as touching that hoar structure or the earth of the inviolate Haram.
Down, swiftly down with picks and crowbars. Down, into the midst of all that paralyzed but still conscious hate, to the very place of the supremely sacred Black Stone, itself.
The raiding-party, beside its two leaders, consisted of Lombardo, Rennes, Emilio, Wallace, and three others, including Lebon. The lieutenant's orderly, now having recovered strength, had pleaded so hard for an opportunity to avenge himself on the hated Moslems that Leclair had taken him.
As for Lombardo, he had downright insisted on going. His life, he knew, was already forfeited to the expedition—by reason of his having let the stowaway escape—and, this being so, he had begged and been granted the favor of risking it in this perilous undertaking.
Such was the party now swiftly dropping toward the Haram where never yet in the history of the world two English-speaking men had at one time gathered; where never yet the speech of the heretic had been heard; where so many intruders had been beheaded or crucified for having dared profane the ground sacred to Allah and his Prophet.
To the major, peering over the side of the nacelle, it seemed as if the Haram—central spot of pilgrimage and fanatic devotion for one-seventh of the human race—were leaping up to meet him. With dizzying rapidity the broad square, the grim black Ka'aba, the prostrate white throngs all sprang up at the basket. Fascinated, the major watched; his eyes, above all, sought the mysterious Ka'aba. Excitement thrilled his romantic soul at thought that he was one of the very first white men in the world ever to behold that strange, ancient building.
Clearly he could see the stone slabs cemented with gypsum, the few stricken pigeons lying there, the cords holding the hugekiswah, or brocaded cloth, covering "Mecca's bride," (the Ka'aba). The Golden Waterspout was plainly visible, gleaming in the sun—a massive trough of pure metal, its value quite incalculable.
Now the Ka'aba was close; now the nacelle slowed, beside it, in the shadow of its grim blackness. The major got an impression of exceeding richness from the shrouding veil, which he saw to be a huge silken fabric, each side like a vast theater curtain of black, with a two-foot band a little more than half-way up, the whole covered with verses from the Koran worked in gold.
The nacelle sank gently on to a heap of motionless pilgrims, canted to the left, and came to rest. Not a groan, curse, or even a sigh escaped the desecrated Moslems forever defiled by the touch of the infidels' accursed machine.
The effect was horribly uncanny—of all those brown men, open-eyed and conscious, but perfectly unable to move so much as an eyebrow. Such as had fallen with their eyes in the direction of the nacelle, could see what was going on; the others could only judge of this incredible desecration by what they could hear. The sound of foreign voices, speaking an unbelievers' tongue in the very shadow of the Ka'aba, must have been supremely horrible to every Mohammedan there.
"Out, men, and at it!" the major commanded, as he scrambled from the nacelle, slid and stumbled over the Moslems, and reached hands for the tools passed out to him. Leclair followed. Men and tools were swiftly unloaded, leaving only Wallace and Emilio at their guns, as agreed.
"Faith, but this is some proposition!" grunted the major, as the seven men trampled over the prostrate bodies, without any delay whatever to peer at the Haram or the Ka'aba.
"The stone's there, men, at the south-east corner! Get busy!"
No exhortation was necessary. Every man, nerved to the utmost energy by the extreme urgency of the situation, leaped to work. And a strange scene began, the strangest in all the history of that unknown city of mysteries. The little troop of white men in uniform stumbled over the bodies and faces of their enemies along the Ka'aba, past the little door about seven feet from the ground, and so, skirting the slanting white base, two feet high, came to the Hajar el Aswad, or Black Stone, itself.
Above, in the burning Arabian sky, the air-liner hovered like a gigantic bird of prey, her gallery-rails lined with motionless watchers. The Master observed every move through powerful glasses. Over his ears a telephone headpiece, which he had slipped on, kept him in close touch with the men in the nacelle, via the steel cable. This cable formed a strand between East and West; if any evil chance should break it, life would end there and then for nine members of the Legion, brave men all.
That their time was short, indeed, was proved by the vague, hollow roar already drifting in from the outskirts of the city, and from the plain whence, crowding, struggling into the city's narrow ways, a raging mass of pilgrims was already on the move. A tidal-wave, a sea of hate, the hundred thousand or moreHujjajas yet untouched by the strong magic of the Feringi, were fighting their way toward the Haram.
The time of respite was measured but by minutes. Each minute, every second, bore supreme value.
"There she is, men!" the major shouted, pointing. And on the instant, driving furiously with pick-axe, he struck the first blow.
Plainly, about three feet below the bottom of the silken veil and four feet above the pavement, there indeed they saw the inestimably sacred stone, which every Moslem believes once formed a part of Paradise and was given by Allah to the first man. To the Legionaries' excited eyes it seemed to be an irregular oval, perhaps seven inches in diameter, with an undulating surface composed of about a dozen smaller stones joined by cement and worn blackly smooth by millions of touches and kisses.
It was surrounded by a border of cement that looked like pitch and gravel; and the major noted, even as he drove his pick into this cement, that both the stone and the border were enclosed by a massive circle of gold with the lower part studded full of silver nails.
Only these hasty observations, and no more, the Legionaries made as they fell with furious energy to the task of dislodging the venerable relic. To all but this labor they were oblivious—to the heat and stifle of that sun-baked square, the mute staring of the paralyzedHujjaj, the wafting languor of incenses from the colonnades, the quiet murmur of waters from the holy well, Zem Zem.
The scene, which ordinarily would have entranced them and filled them with awe, now had become as nothing. Every energy, every sense had centered itself only on this one vital work of extracting the Black Stone from the Ka'aba wall and of making a swift getaway with it before the rising murmur of rage, from without the area of paralysis, should sweep in on them with annihilating passion.
"Here, Emilio—drive your pick here!" commanded the major, his red face now dark crimson with heat and excitement as well as with the intense force wherewith he was wielding his implement. Cement flew in showers at every stroke, out over the sweating Legionaries and the prostrate Moslems near the stone. The white men slid and stumbled on limp bodies, trampled them unheedingly, and of the outstretched pilgrims made as it were a kind of vantage-post for the attack on the inmost citadel of Islam.
"Work quick, Major!" came the Master's voice, seemingly at Bohannan's elbow. "There's a fearful drove of the rascals coming. You'd better get that stone out and away in double-quick time!"
The major replied nothing, but his pick-axe flailed into the cement with desperate energy. Emilio and others seconded him, while Rennes and Wallace dug, kneeling, with their crowbars. The blows echoed with staccato rapidity through the sacred Haram, which now had begun to fill with the confused roar of the on-coming mobs from the Ma'abidah suburb and the Plain of Mina, from Jebel Hindi and the Sulaymainyah quarter.
"You have about five minutes more," the Master spoke again. "If necessary, we will open on them with machine-guns, from the ship, but I'd like to avoid bloodshed if possible. Do the best you can!"
Bohannan had no breath for answering. Every ounce of energy of all seven men was being flung into that mad labor. Sweat streamed into their eyes, half blinding them; they dashed it off, and struck again and again. The cement crumbled and gave; the heavy gold band commenced to bend; Rennes got his crowbar into an advantageous leverage and gave a mighty heave.
The stone seemed to cry aloud, with a dry, harsh screaming sound of outraged agony, as it yielded. It was only the sundering of the mortar, of course; but a chill ran up the major's spine, and goose-flesh prickled all over him. Furiously the Legionaries worked the stone back and forth; a shower of mortar fell on the workers' feet and on the upturned, staring faces of the paralyzed Moslems trampled by the horrible contamination of heretical boots—perhaps even pigskin boots!—and then, all at once, the Hajar el Aswad slid from the place where it had lain uncounted centuries.
Cursing with frantic excitement, the Legionaries tugged it from the wall, together with its golden band. Above them thekiswahbellied outward, swaying in the breeze. No Moslem has ever admitted that the Ka'aba veil is ever moved by any other thing than the wings of angels. Those of the Faithful who now beheld that movement, felt the avenging messengers of Allah were near, indeed; and a thousand unspoken prayers flamed aloft:
"Angels of death, Azraël and his host, smite these outcasts ofFeringistan!"
The prayers seemed more likely of fulfilment from the hands of the oncoming hordes already streaming into the converging streets to the Haram. As the stone came clear, into the hands of the invaders, a dank, chill blast of air blew from the aperture against the white men's faces. It seemed to issue as from a cavern; and with it came a low, groaning sound, as of a soul in torment.
A shadow fell across the Haram; the light of the sun was dulled. The sudden crack of a rifle-shot snapped from the arcade, and a puff of rock-dust flew from the corner of the Ka'aba, not two feet from the major's head.
"Come on, men!" cried the major. "Away!"
Some latent mysticism had been stirred in him; some vague, half-sensed superstition. Nothing more natural than that a cold draught should have soughed from the pent interior of the temple, or that the air-liner, slowly turning as she hung above the Haram, should with her vast planes have for a moment thrown her shadow over the square. But the Celt's imaginative nature quivered as he gripped the stone.
"You, quick, on the other end!" he cried to Emilio. "You, Lombardo, steady her! So! Now—to the nacelle!"
The rifles were opening a lively fire, already, as the men staggered over the prostrate Moslems, reached the nacelle and with a grunt and a heave tumbled the Hajar el Aswad into it. They scrambled after, falling into the shelter of the basket.
Into the arcade, at the north-east corner and half-way along the western side, two furious swarms of white-robedHujjajwere already debouching, yelling like fiends, firing as they came. The uproar swelled rapidly, in a swift-rising tide. The Haram grew all a confusion of wild-waving arms, streaming robes, running men who stumbled over the paralyzed forms of their coreligionists. Knives, spears, scimitars, rifles glinted in the sun.
The whine and patter of bullets filled the air, punctured thekiswah, slogged against the Ka'aba. Lebon and Rennes, turning loose the machine-guns, mowed into the white of the pack; but still they came crowding on and on, frenzied, impervious to fear.
Up rose the nacelle, as the major wildly shouted into the phone. It soared some forty feet in air, up past the black silken curtain, then unaccountably stopped, level with the Ka'aba roof.
"Up! Up!" yelled Bohannan, frantically. The spud of bullets against the steel basket tingled the bodies of the men crouching against the metal-work.
All at once Dr. Lombardo stood up, pick-axe in hand, fully exposed to rifle-fire.
"Down, you blazing idiot!" commanded the major, dragging at him with hands that shook. The doctor thrust him away, and turned toward the Ka'aba, the roof of which was not three feet distant.
"The golden spout—see?" he cried, pointing. "Dio mio, what a treasure!" On to the edge of the nacelle he clambered.
"Don't be a damn fool, Doctor!" the major shouted; but already Lombardo had leaped. Pick in hand, he jumped, landing on the flat roof of the temple.
Ferocious howls and execrations swelled into a screaming chorus of hate, of rage. Unmindful, the Italian was already frantically attacking the Myzab. Blow after blow he rained upon it with the sharp, cutting edge of the pick, that at every stroke sank deep into the massive gold, shearing it in deep gashes.
A perfect hail of rifle-fire riddled the air all about him, but still he labored with sweat streaming down his face all blackened with dirt and cement. FromNissr, far above, cries and shouts rang down at him, mingled with the sharp spitting of the machine-guns from the lower gallery. The guns in the nacelle, too, were chattering; the Haram filled itself with a wild turmoil; the scene beggared any attempt at description, there under the blistering ardor of the Arabian sun.
All at once Dr. Lombardo inserted the blade of the pick under the golden spout, pried hard, bent it upward. He stamped it down again with his boot-heel, dropped the pick and grappled it with both straining hands. By main force he wrenched it up almost at right angles. He gave another pull, snapped it short off, dragged it to the parapet of the Ka'aba, and with a frantic effort swung it, hurled it into the nacelle.
Down sank the basket, a little, under this new weight.
The doctor leaped, jumped short, caught the edge of the basket and was just pulling himself up when a slug caught him at the base of the brain.
His hold relaxed; but the major had him by the wrists. Into the nacelle he dragged the dying man.
"For the love o' God,haul up!" he shouted.
The basket leaped aloft, as the winch—that had been jammed by a trivial accident to the control—took hold of the steel cable. Up it soared, still pursued by dwindling screams of rage, by now futile rifle-fire. Before it had reached the trap in the lower gallery, the main propellers had begun to whicker into swift revolution, all gleaming in the afternoon sun. The gigantic shadow of the Eagle of the Sky began to slide athwart the hill-side streets to south-eastward of the Haram; and so, away.
Up came the nacelle through the trap. The davit swung it to one side; the trap was slammed down and bolted. Out of the nacelle tumbled the major, pale as he had formerly been red, his face all drawn with grief and pain.
"The damned Moslem swine!" he panted. "Faith, but they—they've killed him!" He flung a passionate hand at the basket, in which, prone across the golden spout, the still body of Lombardo was lying. "They've killed as brave a man—"
"We all saw what he did, Major," the chief said quietly. "Dr. Lombardo owed us all a debt, and he has paid it. This is Kismet! Control yourself, Major. The price of such brave adventure—is often death."
They lifted out the limp form, and carried it away to the cabin Dr. Lombardo had occupied, there to wait some opportune time for burial in the desert. Mecca, in the meanwhile, was already fading away to north-westward. The heat-shimmer of that baked land of bare-ribbed rock and naked, igneous hills had already begun to blur its outlines. The white minarets round the Haram still with delicate tracery as of carved ivory stood up against the sky; but of the out-raged people, the colonnades, the despoiled and violated Ka'aba, nothing could any more be seen.
Southward by eastward spedNissr; and with her now was departing the soul of Islam. In her keeping lay three things more sacred than all else to Mohammedan hearts—Kaukab el Durri, the Great Pearl Star; Ha jar el As wad, the Black Stone; and Myzab, the Golden Waterspout.
Awed, silenced, the Legionaries stood there in the lower gallery, peering into the blood-stained nacelle. Hard-bitten men, all, and used to the ways and usages of war; yet factors were present in this latest exploit that sobered and steadied them as never before.
The Master, still unmoved, merely smiled a peculiar smile as he commanded:
"Major, have the stone and the golden spout carried to my cabin. And, if you please, no remarks!"
Bohannan picked a few men to fulfil the order. Then he asked and received permission to retire to the smoke-room, for a pipe and a quiet half-hour, after having washed the dust and grime of battle from his hands and face. The major's Celtic nerves needed tobacco and reflection as they had rarely needed them.
The Master, climbing up the ladder to the main gallery, left Leclair and a few off-duty men in the lower one. Two or three approached the French ace, to hold speech with him about the exploit at the Ka'aba, but he withdrew from them to the extreme rear end of the gallery and remained for a long time in silent contemplation of the fading city, the Plain of Mina, and Mount Arafat, beyond.
As the vague purple haze of late afternoon deepened to veils that began to hide even the outlines of the mountain, he leaned both elbows on the rail and in his own language whispered:
"Nom de Dieu!The Pearl Star—the Golden Waterspout—the sacred Black Stone!" His face was white with pride and a fire of eagerness that burned within. "Why, now we're masters of all Islam—masters of the treasure-houses of the Orient!
"Mais—nom de Dieu!"
Alone in his cabin with the waterspout of massive gold and with the sacred Black Stone, the Master sat down in front of the table where they had been laid, took a few leaves of khat, and with profound attention began to study the treasures hisbold couphad so successfully delivered into his hands.
The waterspout, he saw at once, would as a mere object of precious metal be worth a tremendous sum. It was of raw gold, apparently unalloyed—as befitted its office of carrying the water from the roof of the Ka'aba and throwing it upon Ishmael's grave, where pilgrims have for centuries stood fighting to catch it. Its color verged on reddish; all its lateral surfaces were carved with elaborate arabesques and texts from the Koran. The bottom bore an inscription in Tumar characters, easily decipherable by the Master, stating that it had been sent from Constantinople in the year of the Hegira 981, by Shâfey Hanbaly, the Magnificent.
"A great treasure," pondered the Master. "An almost incalculable treasure, in itself; but less so, intrinsically, than as an object of Moslem veneration. In either case, however, enormously valuable."
He examined it a moment or two longer, noting with care the gashes and deep cuts made by the frantic strokes of Dr. Lombardo's pick-axe. What his thoughts might have been regarding the doctor's tragic death, none could have told. For with a face quite unmoved, he turned now to the examination of the world-famous Black Stone.
This object, he saw, possessed no value whatever,per se. Aside from its golden encircling band studded with silver nails, its worth seemed practically nothing. As it lay on the table before him, he realized that it was nothing but a common aerolite, with the appearance of black slag. Its glossy, pitchlike surface, on the end that had been exposed from the wall, was all worn and polished smooth by innumerable caresses from Moslem hands and lips.
"Very hygienic," the Master thought. "If there was ever a finer way devised for spreading the plague and other Oriental diseases, I can't very well imagine what it could be!"
A bit of the stone had been broken off by Leclair's crowbar. The Master's trained, scientific eye saw, by the brightly sparkling, grayish section of the break, that iron and nickel formed the chief elements of the stone. Its dimensions, though its irregular form made these hard to come by, seemed about two and a half feet in length, by about seven or eight inches in breadth and thickness. Its weight, as the Master stood up and lifted it, must have been about two hundred pounds. No doubt one man could have carried it from its place in the Ka'aba to the nacelle; but in the excitement of battle, and impeded by having to stumble over prostrate Moslems, the major had considered it advisable to ask for help.
"Mineralogically speaking, this is a meteor or a block of volcanic basalt," judged the Master. "It seems sprinkled with small crystals, with rhombs of tile-red feldspath on a dark background like velvet or charcoal, except for one reddish protuberance of an unknown substance. A good blow with a hammer would surely break it along the original lines of fracture—and this is well worth knowing and remembering".
"Well, so far so good," he concluded. "The Air Control Board hasn't got us, yet. Neither have the Mohammedans. True, we've lost a number of men, but that was to have been expected. That's inevitable, and we still have enough. I hardly see that we have so very much to complain of, so far."
He turned, pulled a blanket from his berth and carefully spread it over the loot on the table. Then he pushed the button communicating with the cabin wherein Rrisa was still quivering as a result of having heard the fusillades and the terrific tumult—unseen though they had been to him—at Mecca.
In a couple of minutes the faithful orderly appeared, salaamed, and stood waiting with a drawn, troubled face.
"Allah m'a!" the Master greeted him, in Allah's name inquiring for his good health. "I have something important to ask thee. Come in. Come in, and close the door."
He spoke in Arabic. The orderly, in the same tongue, made answer as he obeyed:
"The Master hath but to talk, and it is answered, if my knowledge can suffice." His words were submissive; but the expression was strange in his eyes, at sight of the blanket on the table. That blanket might hide—what might it not hide? The light in his gaze became one the Master had never yet seen there, not even in the sternest fighting at Gallipoli.
"Mecca lieth behind us, Rrisa," the Master began. "Thou hast seen nothing of it, or of what happened there?"
"Nothing,M'almé.I was bidden remain in my cabin, and the Master's word is always my law. It is true that I heard sounds of a great fighting, but I obeyed the Master. I saw nothing. The Sheik Abd el Hareth, did you deliver him into the hands of the Faithful?"
"No, Rrisa. They refused to accept him. And now I have other plans for him. It is well that thou didst see nothing, for it was a mighty fighting and there was death both to them and to us. Now, my questions to thee."
"Yea, Master?"
"Tell me this thing, first. Is it indeed true speaking, as I have heard, that the Caliph el Walid the First, in Hegira 88, sent to Mecca an immense present of gold and silver, forty camel-loads of small cut gems and a hundred thousandmiskalsin gold coin?"
"It is true, Master. Save that he sent more; nearly two hundred thousandmiskals. He also sent eighty Coptic and Greek artists to carve and gild the mosques.
"One Greek sculptured a hog on the Mosque of Omar, trying to make it into akanisah(unclean idol-house). My people discovered the sacrilege, and"—he added with intent—"gave that Greek the bowstring, then quartered the body and threw it to the vultures."
"That is of no importance whatever, Rrisa," answered the Master with an odd smile. "What thy people do to the unbeliever, if they capture him, is nothing to me. For—dost thou see?—they must first make the capture. What I would most like to know is this: where is all that treasure, now?"
"I cannot tell you, Master."
"At Mecca?"
"No, Master, not at Mecca."
"Then where?"
"M'almé!My lips are sealed as the Forbidden Books!"
"Not against the commands of thy sheik—and I am thy sheik!"
Rrisa's lips twitched. The inner struggle of his soul reflected itself in his lean, brown face. At last he aroused himself to make answer:
"The treasure, Master, is far to the south-east—in another city."
"Ah! So thereisanother city far out in Ruba el Khali, the EmptyAbodes!"
"Yea,M'almé, that is so."
"Then the ancient rumor is true? And it is from near that city that thou didst come, eh? By Allah's power, I command thee to tell me of this hidden city of the central deserts!"
"This thing I cannot do, my sheik."
"This thing thou must do!"
"O Master! It is the secret of all secrets! Spare me this!"
"No Rrisa, thou must obey. Far inside El Hejaz (the barrier), that city is lying for my eyes to behold. I must know of it. Thy oath to me cannot be broken. Speak, thou!"
The Master made no gesture with his hands, did not frown or clench his fists, but remained impassively calm. His words, however, cut Rrisa like knives. The orderly remained trembling and sweating, with a piteous expression. Finally he managed to stammer:
"M'almé, in our tongue we have a proverb: 'There are two things colder than ice—a young old man and an old young man.' There is still a colder thing—the soul that betrays the Hidden City!"
"Speak Rrisa! There is no escape for thee!"
"My sheik, I obey," quavered the unfortunate orderly, shaken with a palsy of fear. Without a quiver, the Arab would rush a machine-gun position or face a bayonet-charge; but this betrayal of his kin struck at the vitals of his faith. Still, the Master's word was law even above Al Koran. With trembling lips he made answer:
"This city—spare me uttering its name, Master!—lies many hours' journey, even by this Eagle of the Sky, beyond the Iron Mountains that no man of the Feringi hath ever seen. It lies beyond the Great Sand Barrier, in a valley of the Inner Mountains; yea, at the very heart of Ruba el Khali."
"I hear thee, Rrisa. Speak further. And let thy speaking be truth!"
"It shall be truth, by the Prophet's beard! What doth the Master ask of me?"
"Is it a large city, Rrisa?"
"Very large."
"And beautiful?"
"As the Jebel Radhwa!" (Mountain of Paradise).
"Thou hast been in that secret city, Rrisa?"
"Once, Master. The wonderful sight still remaineth in mine eyes."
"And, seeing the Iron Mountains again, thou couldst guide us thither?"
"Allah forbid! That is among the black deeds, Master! 'The grave is darkness and good deeds are its lamps; but for the betrayer, there shall be no light!'Wallah, Effendi!Do not make me your guide!"
"I have not said I intended to do so, Rrisa. I merely asked thee if thoucouldst!" The Master's voice was silken, fine, penetrant. "Well, Rrisa, tell me if thou couldst!"
"Yea, Master.Ya gharati!(O my calamity!) It is true I could." The words issued from his unwilling throat as if torn out by main force. "But I earnestly beg of you, my sheik, do not make me do this thing!"
"Rrisa, if I command, thou must obey me! 'There is only one thing can ever loose the bonds I have knotted about thee."
"And that is certainty (death), Master?"
"That is certainty! But this, to the oath-breaker and the abuser of the salt, means a place among themujrim(sinful). It means Jehannum, and an unhappy couch shall it be!"
Rrisa's face grew even more drawn and lined. A trembling had possessed his whole body.
"Master, I obey!" he made submission, then stood waiting with downcast eyes of suffering.
"It is well," said the chief, rising. He stood for a moment peering at Rrisa, while the hum and roar of the great air-liner's mechanism, the dip and sway of its vast body through the upper air, seemed to add a kind of oppressive solemnity to the tense situation. To the cabin wall the Master turned. There hung a large-scale map of the Arabian Peninsula. He laid a hand on the vast, blank interior, and nodded for Rrisa to approach.
"Listen, thou," said he. "Thy knowledge is sufficient. Thou dost understand the interpretation of maps, and canst read latitude and longitude. Mark here the place of the Hidden City!"
"Of the Bara Jannati Shahr, Master? Ah no,no!"
"So then, that is its name?" the chief demanded, smiling.
"No,M'almé. Thou dost know the Arabic. Thou dost understand this means only, in thy tongue, the Very Heavenly City."
"True. Well, let it pass. Very Heavenly City it shall be, till the real name becomes known. Come now, mark the place of the Hidden City and mark it truly, or the greatest of sins will lie upon thy soul!"
The Arab advanced a brown, quivering hand.
"Give me a pencil, Master, and I obey!" he answered, in a voice hardly audible.