"Thou hast said it, Rrisa! Now, behold them!"
With a quick, dramatic gesture, well-calculated to strike at the roots of the superstitious Arab's nature, he flung away the blanket. To Rrisa's horrified gaze appeared the Myzab and the sacred Black Stone.
"Ya Allah!" gulped the orderly, in a choking whisper. His face became a dull gray. His eyes, rimmed with white, stared in terror. His teeth began to chatter; and on his forehead appeared little glistening drops.
"O Master, that is not—."
"Truly, yea! The Golden Waterspout, Rrisa, and the Black Stone itself! I am carrying them to the Very Heavenly City, far in the Iron Mountains! They shall be given to the Great Olema, there, who is more fit to guard and keep them than the Sheriff of Mecca or than his sons Feisal and the two Alis. No harm shall befall them, and—"
"And your hand—the hands of other Feringi who are not my masters—have touched these things?" stammered Rrisa. "O my calamity! O my grief!"
"Thou canst go now, Rrisa," the Master said. "Go, and think well of what I have told thee, and—"
But Rrisa, falling prone to the metal of the cabin floor, facing the Black Stone, gave vent to his feelings and burst into a wild cry of "La Illaha—" and the rest of the immemorial formula.
The Master smiled down at him, quizzical and amused yet still more than a little affected by the terror and devotion of his orderly. Wise, he waited till Rrisa had made the compulsory prayers of Labbayk, Takbir, and Tahiti, as all Moslems must do when coming near the Black Stone. Then, as the orderly's voice suddenly died away, he bent and laid a hand on the quivering Arab's shoulder.
"Come, come, Rrisa," said he, not unkindly. "Be thou not so distressed. Is it not better that these very precious things be kept in greater safety at the Jannati Shahr? Come, Rrisa! Arise!"