The whine and patter of bullets filled the air, punctured the kiswah, 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.  From Nissr, 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.