EAST AGAINST WEST
The major, peering down through the trap, swore luridly. Leclair
muttered something to himself, with wrinkled brow. "Captain Alden's"
eyes blinked strangely, through the holes of the mask. The others
stared in frank astonishment.
"What the devil, sir--?" began the major; but the chief held up
his hand for silence. Again he spoke whisperingly into the strange
apparatus. This time a murmur rose to him; a murmur increasing to a
confused tumult, that in an angry wave of malediction beat up about
Nissr as she hung there with spinning helicopters, over the city.
The Master smiled as he put up the receiver in the little box and
closed the door with a snap. Regretfully he shook his head.
"These Arabic gentlemen, _et ál_," he remarked, "don't seem agreeably
disposed to treat with us on a basis of exchanging the Sheik Abd el
Rahman for what we want from them. My few remarks in Arabic, via this
etheric megaphone, seem to have met a rebuff. Every man in the Haram,
the minarets, the arcade, and the radiating streets heard every word I
said, gentlemen, as plainly as if I had spoken directly into his ear.
Yet no sound at all developed here."
"The principle is parallel to that of an artillery shell that only
bursts when it strikes, and might be extremely useful in warfare,
if properly developed--as I haven't had time, yet, to develop it. No
matter about that, though. My proposal has been rejected. Peace having
been declined, we have no alternative but to use other, means.
There is positively no way of coming to an agreement with our Moslem
friends, below."
As if to corroborate his statement, a rifle-bullet whistled through
the open trap and flattened itself against the metal underbody of the
fuselage, over their heads. It fell almost at "Captain Alden's" feet.
She picked it up and pocketed it.
"My first bit of Arabia," said she. "Worth keeping."
The firing, below, had now become more general than ever. Shrill cries
rose to Allah for the destruction of these infidel flying dogs. The
Master paid no more heed to them than to the buzzing of so many bees.
"I think, Major," said he, "we shall have to use one of the two
kappa-ray bombs on these Arabic gentry. It's rather too bad we haven't
more of them, and that the capsules are all gone."
"Pardon me, my Captain," put in Leclair, "but the
paralysis-vibrations, eh? As you did to me, why not to them?"
"Impossible. The way we're crippled, now, I haven't the equipment. But
I shall nevertheless be able to show you something, Lieutenant. Major
will you kindly drop one of the kappa-rays?"
He gestured at two singular-looking objects that stood on the metal
floor of the lower gallery, about six feet from the trap. Cubical
objects they were, some five inches on the edge, each enclosed in what
seemed a tough, black, leather-like substance netted with stout white
cords that were woven together into a handle at the top.
Strong as Bohannan was, his face grew red, with swollen veins in
forehead and neck, as he tried to lift this small object. Nothing in
the way of any known substance could possibly have weighed so much;
not even solid lead or gold.
"Faith!" grunted the major. "What the devil? These two little metal
boxes didn't weigh a pound apiece when--ugh!--when we packed 'em in
our bags. How about it, chief?"
The Master smiled with amusement.
"They weren't magnetized then, Major," he answered. "Shall I have
someone help you?"
"No, by God! I'll either lift this thing or die, right here!" the Celt
panted, redder still. But he did not lift the little cube. The best he
could do was to drag it, against mighty resistance, to the edge of the
trap; and with a last, mighty heave, project it into space.
As it left the trap, _Nissr_ rocked and swayed, showing how great a
weight had been let drop. Down sped the little, netted cube, whirling
in the sunlight. Its speed was almost that of a rifle-ball--so far in
excess of anything that could have been produced by gravitation as to
suggest that some strange, magnetic force was hurling it earthward,
like a metal-filing toward an electro-magnet. It dwindled to nothing,
in a second, and vanished.
All peered over the rail, eager with anticipation. No explosion
followed, but the most astonishing thing happened. All at once,
without any preliminary disturbance, the ground became white. A
perfect silence fell on the Haram and the city for perhaps half a mile
on all sides of the sacred enclosure Haram and streets, roof-tops,
squares all looked as if suddenly covered with deep snow.
This whiteness, however, was not snow, but was produced by the
_ihrams_ of the pilgrims now coming wholly to view.
Instead of gazing down on the heads of the multitude--all bare heads,
as the Prophet commands for pilgrims--the Legionaries now found
themselves looking at their whole bodies. Every pilgrim in sight
had instantaneously fallen to the earth, on the gravel of the Haram,
along the raised walks from the porticoes to the Ka'aba, on the marble
tiling about the Ka'aba itself, even in the farthest visible streets.
The white-clad figures lay piled on each other in grotesque attitudes
and heaps. Even the stone tank at the north-west side of the Ka'aba,
under the famous Myzab, or Golden Waterspout on the Ka'aba roof, was
heaped full of them; and all round the sacred Zem Zem well they lay in
silent windrows, reaped down by some silent, invisible force.
In the remote suburbs and out on the plain, the Legionaries'
binoculars could still see a swarming of white figures; but all the
immediate vicinity was now wholly silent, motionless. To and fro the
Master swept his glasses, and nodded with satisfaction.
"You have now fifteen minutes, men," said he, "before the paralyzing
shock of that silent detonation--that noiseless release of molecular
energies which does not kill nor yet destroy consciousness in the
least--will pass away. So--"
"You mean to tell me, my Captain, _those pilgrims are still
conscious?_" demanded Leclair, amazed.
"Perfectly. They will see, hear, and know all you do. I wish them to.
The effect will be salutary, later. But they cannot move or interfere.
All you have to look out for is the incoming swarm of fanatics already
on the move. So there is no time to be lost. Into the nacelle, and
down with you!"
"But if they try to rush us you can drop the other bomb, can't you?"
demanded the major, as they all clambered into the nacelle.
The Master smiled, as he laid his hands on top of the basket and
cast his eyes over the equipment there, noting that machine-guns,
pick-axes, crowbars, and all were in position.
"The idea does you credit, Major," said he. "The fact that the other
bomb would of course completely paralyze you and your men, here, is
naturally quite immaterial. Let us have no more discussion, please.
Only fourteen minutes, thirty seconds now remain before the _Hujjaj_
will begin to recover their muscular control. You have your work cut
out for you, the next quarter-hour!"
The Master raised his hand in signal to Grison, at the electric winch
A turn of a lever, and the nacelle rose from the metals of the lower
gallery. It swung over the trap and was steadied there, a moment, by
many hands. The raiding-party leaped in.
"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.