Men, birds, and animals alike, all shared the terror of this unheard-of outrage when--according to ancient prophesy--the Great Devils of Feringistan should desecrate the holy places.
[Footnote 1: So called because of their habit of cooing and bowing.
Moslems fancy they are praying to Allah and making salaam to him.] "Slow her!" commanded the Master into the engine-room phone, and began compensating with the helicopters, as _Nissr_ lagged over the crowded city.

"Shut off--let her drift! Stand by to reverse!" Mecca the Unattainable now lay directly beneath, its dun roofs, packed streets, ivory minarets all open to the heretics' gaze from portholes, from the forward observation pit and from the lower gallery.

As _Nissr_ eased herself down to about one thousand feet, the plan of the city became visible as on a map.

The radiating streets all started from the Haram.

White mobs were working themselves into frenzy, trampling the pilgrims' shrouds that had been dipped in the waters of the well, Zem Zem, and laid out to dry.
Not even the Master's aplomb could suppress a strange gleam in his eye, could keep his face from paling a little or his lips from tightening, as he now beheld the inmost shrine of two hundred and thirty million human beings.