This
cable formed a strand between East and West; if any evil chance
should break it, life would end there and then for nine members of the
Legion, brave men all.
That their time was short, indeed, was proved by the vague, hollow
roar already drifting in from the outskirts of the city, and from
the plain whence, crowding, struggling into the city's narrow ways, a
raging mass of pilgrims was already on the move. A tidal-wave, a sea
of hate, the hundred thousand or more _Hujjaj_ as yet untouched by the
strong magic of the Feringi, were fighting their way toward the Haram.
The time of respite was measured but by minutes. Each minute, every
second, bore supreme value.
"There she is, men!" the major shouted, pointing. And on the instant,
driving furiously with pick-axe, he struck the first blow.
Plainly, about three feet below the bottom of the silken veil and four
feet above the pavement, there indeed they saw the inestimably sacred
stone, which every Moslem believes once formed a part of Paradise and
was given by Allah to the first man. To the Legionaries' excited eyes
it seemed to be an irregular oval, perhaps seven inches in diameter,
with an undulating surface composed of about a dozen smaller stones
joined by cement and worn blackly smooth by millions of touches and
kisses.
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