The Master observed every move through powerful glasses.
Over his ears a telephone headpiece, which he had slipped on, kept him in close touch with the men in the nacelle, via the steel cable.

This cable formed a strand between East and West; if any evil chance should break it, life would end there and then for nine members of the Legion, brave men all.
That their time was short, indeed, was proved by the vague, hollow roar already drifting in from the outskirts of the city, and from the plain whence, crowding, struggling into the city's narrow ways, a raging mass of pilgrims was already on the move.

A tidal-wave, a sea of hate, the hundred thousand or more _Hujjaj_ as yet untouched by the strong magic of the Feringi, were fighting their way toward the Haram.
The time of respite was measured but by minutes.

Each minute, every second, bore supreme value.
"There she is, men!" the major shouted, pointing.

And on the instant, driving furiously with pick-axe, he struck the first blow.
Plainly, about three feet below the bottom of the silken veil and four feet above the pavement, there indeed they saw the inestimably sacred stone, which every Moslem believes once formed a part of Paradise and was given by Allah to the first man.