As the air-liner roared onward, a dim plain appeared, with
here or there a green-blue blur of oasis and with a few faint white
spots that the Master knew were pilgrims' camping-places.
Down through this plain extended an irregular depression, a kind of
narrow valley, with a few sharply isolated, steep hills on either
hand.
The Master's eyes gleamed. His jaw set; his hand, on the controls,
tightened till the knuckles whitened.
"The Valley of Mina!" he exclaimed. "Mount Arafat--and there, beyond,
lies Mecca! _Labbayk! Labbayk!_"
CHAPTER XXX
OVER MECCA
The descent of the giant air-liner and her crew of masterful
adventurers on the Forbidden City had much the quality of a hawk's
raid on a vast pigeon-cote. As _Nissr_, now with slowed engines loomed
down the Valley of Sacrifice, a perfectly indescribable hurricane of
panic, rage, and hate surged through all the massed thousands who had
come from the farthest ends of Islam to do homage to the holy places
of the Prophet.
The outraged Moslems, in one fierce burst of passion against the
invading Feringi, began to swarm like ants when the stone covering
their ant-hill is kicked over.
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