“Mais—­nom de Dieu!”

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE ORDEAL OF RRISA

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 his bold coup had 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 Shafey 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.