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.
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 more Hujjaj as 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 paralyzed Hujjaj, 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 the kiswah bellied 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 of
Feringistan!"
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-robed Hujjaj were 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 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.
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 sped Nissr; 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!"