“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 the Bayt 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.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE BATTLE OF THE HARAM

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 huge kiswah, 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.