The Flying Legion eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 412 pages of information about The Flying Legion.

The Flying Legion eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 412 pages of information about The Flying Legion.

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, Azrael 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.

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The Flying Legion from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.