"Soon, Rrisa," the chief answered, turning away from the map. "But first there is something of highest import I must show thee." "And what may that be, my sheik?" the Arab queried, his widening eyes fixed on the blanket that covered the loot from Mecca. Instinctively he sensed that some horrible sight was about to be presented to him. His face paled even more. He licked dry lips with a tongue equally dry, and leaned against the table to steady himself. "What have you now to show me, O _M'almé?_" "Listen!" the chief commanded sternly. "The Meccans are a people corrupt and accursed. 'Their hearts are black as their skins are white.' They live by fleecing the _Hujjaj_, by making sale and barter of relics, by turning the holy places into marts of trade. All this is well known throughout Islam. Ah, the degenerate breed of the sons of the Prophet!" "That is true, Master. And what then?" "Is it not a fact that they could not even safeguard the Kaukab el Durri from the hand of the Great Apostate Sheik? How much less, then, could they protect their other and more sacred things, if some Shiah dog should come to rob them of the things they value? "Would it not be better that such things should be carried far from danger, to the hidden, inner city? I ask thee this, Rrisa; would it not be better far?" "And what is the meaning of my master's strange words?" ventured Rrisa, a sort of dazed horror dawning in his eyes. "The other and more sacred things of Islam--are they there under that cloth, O Master?" "Thou hast said it, Rrisa! Now, behold them!" With a quick, dramatic gesture, well-calculated to strike at the roots of the superstitious Arab's nature, he flung away the blanket. To Rrisa's horrified gaze appeared the Myzab and the sacred Black Stone. "_Ya Allah!_" gulped the orderly, in a choking whisper. His face became a dull gray. His eyes, rimmed with white, stared in terror. His teeth began to chatter; and on his forehead appeared little glistening drops. "O Master, that is not--." "Truly, yea! The Golden Waterspout, Rrisa, and the Black Stone itself! I am carrying them to the Very Heavenly City, far in the Iron Mountains! They shall be given to the Great Olema, there, who is more fit to guard and keep them than the Sheriff of Mecca or than his sons Feisal and the two Alis. No harm shall befall them, and--" "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.