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.

From end to end of the valley, a howling tumult arose.
On the Darb el Ma'ala, or Medina Road, a caravan bearing the annual _mahmal_ gift of money, jewels, fine fabrics, and embroidered coverings for the Ka'aba temple, cut loose with rifles and old blunderbusses.

Dogs began to bark, donkeys to bray, camels to spit and snarl.

The whole procession fell into an anarchy of hate and fear.
The vast camp of conical white tents in the Valley of Mina spewed out uncounted thousands of _Hujjaj_ (pilgrims), each instantly transformed into a blood-lusting fiend.