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!