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Wise, he waited till Rrisa had made the compulsory prayers of Labbayk, Takbir, and Tahiti, as all Moslems must do when coming near the Black Stone. Then, as the orderly's voice suddenly died away, he bent and laid a hand on the quivering Arab's shoulder. "Come, come, Rrisa," said he, not unkindly. "Be thou not so distressed.
Labbayk!" the voices being not infrequently broken by sobs. On entering the gates, Burton and Nur crossed the famous hill Safa and took up their abode with the lad Mohammed. Early next morning they rose, bathed, and made their way with the crowd to the Prophet's Mosque in order to worship at the huge bier-like erection called the Kaaba, and the adjacent semi-circular Hatim's wall.
To this end she made weird passes through the air with her clawlike hands, crying in a whispered, high-pitched wail the word, "Labbayk, labbayk," an Arabian word meaning "Here am I." Rita was soon trembling with fright, and begged the hag to allow her to leave the wagon. "Sit where you are, girl," commanded the gypsy in sepulchral tones.
Now vast ambitions dominated and infused it with virile force. As he held the speeding air-liner to her predetermined course through voids of night and mystery, he peered with burning eagerness at the beckoning stars along the world's far, eastern rim. "Behold now, Allah!" he cried suddenly. "Labbayk! I come!"
Came an echoing call of trumpets, from far, hidden places in the city; and kettle-drums boomed with dull reverberation. "Labbayk, Allahuma!" shouted Bara Miyan, announcing with praise to Allah his entrance into the City of Gold. A long, great shouting answered him from the massed thousands of white figures on the walls.
After passing the classic Wady Laymun, sung by the Arab poet Labid in lines suggestive of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, they very piously shaved their heads and donned the conventional attire, namely two new cotton cloths with narrow red stripes and fringes; and when the Holy City came in view, the whole caravan raised the cry, "Mecca! Mecca! the Sanctuary! O the Sanctuary! Labbayk!
His jaw set; his hand, on the controls, tightened till the knuckles whitened. "The Valley of Mina!" he exclaimed. "Mount Arafat and there, beyond, lies Mecca! Labbayk! Labbayk!" 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.
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