For centuries the shrine at Mecca had been of merely local importance, far outshone by the Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem, whose cult Christians had in good measure renewed by their pilgrimage in honour of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, while leaving the actual site of the Jerusalem Temple dishonoured and waste.

Well, there must be some flaw about this, I suggested. If your magnet is so strong as all that, you would have your own broadside boomeranging back upon you.

So far we had done nothing except file past a tool-dump, where men had collected picks, shovels, coils of wire and corkscrew stakes.

Sansha Bay, 62 miles north of Foochow, is one of the good harbors on the China coast. It has deep water and is surrounded on all sides by steep precipices.