“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!”

The orderly made no move, uttered no sound.  The Master dragged him up, held him, peered into his face that had gone quite ashen under its brown.

“Why, Lord! the man has fainted dead away!” exclaimed the Master.  He gathered Rrisa in his powerful arms, carried him to his own cabin and laid him in the berth, there; then he bathed his face with water and chafed his hands and throat.

In a few minutes, Rrisa’s eyes vaguely opened.  He gulped, gasped, made shift to speak a few feeble words.

“Master!” he whispered.

“Well, what dost thou wish?”

“One favor, only!”

“And what is that?”

“Leave me, a little while.  I must be alone, all alone with Allah—­to think!”

The Master nodded.

“It shall be as thou wishest,” said he.  “Think, yes.  And understand that what I do is best for all of Sunnite Islam!  As for the Shiah dogs, what hast thou to trouble about them?”

Saying no more, he withdrew to his own cabin, wrapped the Myzab and the Stone in the blanket and laid them carefully under his berth.  Opening his desk-drawer, he assured himself the Pearl Star was still there.  This done, he turned again to the map, carefully studied the location of the point Rrisa had designated, and—­going to the pilot-house—­gave directions for a new course to “Captain Alden,” now at the wheel.

This course, he calculated by allowing for wind and lateral drift, would carry Nissr directly toward the site of the still half-mythical Iron Mountains and the Bara Jannati Shahr.

He now returned to his cabin, locked himself in and—­pondering over a few khat leaves—­passed the remainder of the afternoon sunk in deep abstraction.

Evening and night still found him in profound thought, while the giant air-liner steadily rushed into the south-east, bearing him and the Legion onward toward dim regions now veiled in purple darkness under strange stars.