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. The whine and patter of bullets filled the air, punctured the _kiswah_, slogged against the Ka'aba. Lebon and Rennes, turning loose the machine-guns, mowed into the white of the pack; but still they came crowding on and on, frenzied, impervious to fear. Up rose the nacelle, as the major wildly shouted into the phone. It soared some forty feet in air, up past the black silken curtain, then unaccountably stopped, level with the Ka'aba roof. "Up! Up!" yelled Bohannan, frantically. The spud of bullets against the steel basket tingled the bodies of the men crouching against the metal-work. All at once Dr. Lombardo stood up, pick-axe in hand, fully exposed to rifle-fire. "Down, you blazing idiot!" commanded the major, dragging at him with hands that shook. The doctor thrust him away, and turned toward the Ka'aba, the roof of which was not three feet distant. "The golden spout--see?" he cried, pointing. "_Dio mio_, what a treasure!" On to the edge of the nacelle he clambered. "Don't be a damn fool, Doctor!" the major shouted; but already Lombardo had leaped. Pick in hand, he jumped, landing on the flat roof of the temple.