excess of anything that could have been produced by gravitation as to
suggest that some strange, magnetic force was hurling it earthward,
like a metal-filing toward an electro-magnet. It dwindled to nothing,
in a second, and vanished.

All peered over the rail, eager with anticipation. No explosion
followed, but the most astonishing thing happened. All at once,
without any preliminary disturbance, the ground became white. A
perfect silence fell on the Haram and the city for perhaps half a mile
on all sides of the sacred enclosure Haram and streets, roof-tops,
squares all looked as if suddenly covered with deep snow.

This whiteness, however, was not snow, but was produced by the
_ihrams_ of the pilgrims now coming wholly to view.

Instead of gazing down on the heads of the multitude--all bare heads,
as the Prophet commands for pilgrims--the Legionaries now found
themselves looking at their whole bodies. Every pilgrim in sight
had instantaneously fallen to the earth, on the gravel of the Haram,
along the raised walks from the porticoes to the Ka'aba, on the marble
tiling about the Ka'aba itself, even in the farthest visible streets.

The white-clad figures lay piled on each other in grotesque attitudes
and heaps. Even the stone tank at the north-west side of the Ka'aba,
under the famous Myzab, or Golden Waterspout on the Ka'aba roof, was
heaped full of them; and all round the sacred Zem Zem well they lay in
silent windrows, reaped down by some silent, invisible force.

In the remote suburbs and out on the plain, the Legionaries'
binoculars could still see a swarming of white figures; but all the
immediate vicinity was now wholly silent, motionless. To and fro the
Master swept his glasses, and nodded with satisfaction.

"You have now fifteen minutes, men," said he, "before the paralyzing
shock of that silent detonation--that noiseless release of molecular
energies which does not kill nor yet destroy consciousness in the
least--will pass away. So--"

"You mean to tell me, my Captain, _those pilgrims are still
conscious?_" demanded Leclair, amazed.

"Perfectly. They will see, hear, and know all you do. I wish them to.
The effect will be salutary, later. But they cannot move or interfere.
All you have to look out for is the incoming swarm of fanatics already
on the move. So there is no time to be lost. Into the nacelle, and
down with you!"

"But if they try to rush us you can drop the other bomb, can't you?"
dem