It swung over the trap and was steadied there, a moment, by many hands.

The raiding-party leaped in.
"Lower away!" commanded the chief Smoothly the winch released the fine steel cable, with a purring sound.

Down shot the nacelle, steadily, swiftly, with the major, Leclair, and the others now engaged in the most perilous, dare-devil undertaking imaginable.
Down, swiftly down, to raid the _Bayt Ullah_, the sacred Ka'aba, holy of holies to more than two hundred million Moslem fanatics, each of whom would with joy have died to keep the hand of the unbelieving dog from so much as touching that hoar structure or the earth of the inviolate Haram.
Down, swiftly down with picks and crowbars.

Down, into the midst of all that paralyzed but still conscious hate, to the very place of the supremely sacred Black Stone, itself..