The Days of Mohammed Part 17

"A man who might be an angel of light, were he truly under divine guidance," returned Yusuf. "And, mark me, Amzi, his influence will not stop with this generation. The influence of every man on G.o.d's earth goes on ever-rolling, ever-unceasing, down the long tide of eternity; but, in every age, there are those who, like Mohammed, possess such an individuality, such a personality, that their power goes on increasing, crashing like the avalanche down my native mountains."

"How eloquently such a thought appeals to right impulse, right action!"

said Amzi, thoughtfully. "Did a man realize its import fully, he would surely be spurred on to act, not to sit idly letting the world drift by."

"'No man liveth unto himself,'" said Yusuf slowly. "Whether we will it or not, we are each of us ever exerting some influence for good or for ill upon those with whom we come in contact. No one can be neutral. Acts often speak in thunder-tones, when mere words are heard but in whispers."

"I fear me, Yusuf," said the Meccan, with a half-smile, "that Amzi has neither thundered in action, nor even whispered in words. So little good has he done, that he almost hates to think of your great influence theory."

Yusuf smiled and slipped his arm about the Meccan's shoulder. "Amzi, the name of 'benevolent' belies your words," he said. "Think you that your home duties faithfully performed, your pure and upright life, pa.s.s for naught?"

"You would stand aghast, Yusuf," returned Amzi, "if I told you the amount of time that I have squandered, simply in dreaming, smoking, and taking my ease."

"Time is a precious gift," replied Yusuf, "it flows on and on as a great river towards the sea, and never returns. It appears to me, every day, more clearly as the talent given to all men to be used rightly. I, as well as you, have let precious hours pa.s.s, and, in doing so, we have both done wrong. Yet I pray that we may every day see, more and more, the necessity of well occupying the hours,--'redeeming the time, because the days are evil.'"

"Would that I had your decision of purpose, your firmness of will!" said Amzi, wistfully. "Yusuf, it would be impossible for me to spend all my time as you do,--visiting, relieving, studying, speaking ever the word in season, and ever working for others. I should miss my _kaif_."

"Even if you know it was in the cause of the Lord?" asked Yusuf, with gentle reproof. "Yet, Amzi, you have done as much as I, considering your opportunities. The great thing is to do faithfully whatever comes to one's hand, whether that be great or small. Know you not that it was said to him who had received only two talents, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things.' As bright crowns await the humble home-workers as the great movers of earth, provided all be done 'as unto the Lord.'"

"But," returned Amzi, impatiently, "my 'good works,' as you call them, have not been done 'as unto the Lord.' My charities have been done simply because the sight of misery caused me to feel unhappy. I felt pity for the wretched, and in relieving them set my own mind at ease, and gave satisfaction to myself. I feel that it is right to do certain things, and so I do them under a sense of moral obligation."

"Then," said Yusuf, "has this acting under a sense of moral obligation brought you perfect satisfaction, perfect rest?"

"Frankly, it has not."

Yusuf rose, and, placing both hands on Amzi's shoulders, said earnestly: "My friend, who can say that every good impulse of man may not be an outcome of the divine nature implanted in him by the Creator, and which, if watered and developed, will surely burst into the flower of goodness when once the influence of G.o.d's Spirit is fully recognized and ever invoked? Amzi, you have many such seeds of innate good. Your very longings for good, your tone of late, show me that you are near this blessed recognition. Why will you not believe? Why will you not embrace the Lord Jesus Christ? We are all weak of ourselves, but we have strength in him. Amzi, my friend, pray for yourself."

He turned abruptly and left Amzi alone, to ponder long and earnestly over the conversation of the past hour.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FATE OF DUMAH.

"Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console."--_Colton._

And now began a veritable reign of terror for the Jews of Medina. The first evidence of the closing of Mohammed's iron hand was shown in his forcing them to make Mecca, rather than Jerusalem, their kebla, or point of prayer. Many refused to obey this command, and were consequently dragged off to await the pleasure of the prophet.

At first the keenest edge of Moslem vindictiveness seemed to be directed against the bards or poets, for the power of stirring and pathetic poetry in arousing the pa.s.sionate Oriental blood to revenge was recognized as an instrument too potent to be overlooked.

Ere long even the form of imprisonment was, to a great extent, set aside, and the knife of the a.s.sa.s.sin was set at work. Among those who thus fell were Kaab, a Jewish poet who strove to incite the Koreish to aggressive measures against the Moslems; and a.s.sina, a young woman who had been guilty of writing satires directed against the prophet himself.

Yusuf and Amzi became greatly alarmed for the safety of Dumah. Every possible means of rendering a.s.sistance to the poor singer seemed to be cut off. They could not even find any clue to his whereabouts, and feared that he, too, had fallen beneath some treacherous blade.

As yet, Amzi and Yusuf had been permitted to wander at will. For hours and hours did they roam about the streets seeking for some clue to Dumah's place of imprisonment, but all efforts were futile, until one day Amzi heard a faint voice singing in the cellar of one of the Moslem buildings. He lay down by the wall, closed his eyes, and strained his ears to catch the sound. It was a.s.suredly Dumah, singing weakly:

"Oh, why will they not come, The friends of Dumah!

For living death is upon him, And the walls of his tomb close over, Yet will not in mercy fall on him.

Does the sun shine still on the mountain, And the trees wave?

Do the birds still sing in the palm-trees, And the flowers still bloom in Kuba?

And yet doth Dumah languish

"But Dumah's friends have forgotten him, Nor seek him more, And even the angels vanish, And the tomb is all about him: O Death, come, haste to Dumah!"

The voice sank away in a low wail, and Amzi sprang up. His first impulse was to rush in and batter at the door of Dumah's cell; his second, to call words of comfort through the wall. Yet either would be imprudent and might ruin all, so he hastened home to Yusuf.

"I will go to him immediately," said the priest.

"But how?"

"In disguise if need be," was the reply.

"In disguise!" exclaimed Amzi. "Friend, with your physique, think you you can disguise yourself? Not a Moslem in Mecca who does not know the figure of Yusuf the Christian. Nay, Yusuf, your friend Amzi can effect a disguise much more easily. Here,"--running his fingers through his gray beard,--"a few grains of black dye can soon transform this; some stain will change the Meccan's ruddy cheeks into the brown of a desert Arab.

The thing is easy."

"As you will, then," said the priest; and the two were soon busy at work at the transforming process.

With the garb of a Moslem soldier, Amzi was soon, to all appearance, a pa.s.sable Mussulman, with divided beard, and chocolate-brown skin.

He set out, and, having arrived at the door of the sort of barracks in which Dumah was imprisoned, mingled with the soldiers, quite unnoticed among the new arrivals who constantly swelled the prophet's army.

With the greatest difficulty, yet without exciting apparent suspicion, he found out the exact spot in which Dumah was confined. Upon the first opportunity he slipped noiselessly after the attendant who was carrying the prisoner's pittance of food. Under his robe he had tools for excavating a hole beneath the wall, and his plan was to step silently into the room, secrete himself behind the door, and permit himself to be locked in, trusting to subsequent efforts for effecting the freedom of himself and Dumah.

Silently he glided into the darkened room behind the keeper. All within seemed dark as night after the brighter light without; but Dumah's eyes, accustomed to the darkness, could see more clearly. He penetrated the disguise at once.

"Amzi! Amzi!" he cried out delightedly, "you have come! You have come!"

Amzi knew that all was undone.

"Treachery!" called the keeper.

The Moslems came pouring into the room. Amzi was overpowered, and pinioned on the spot.

"What means this?" cried Asru, the captain of the guard.

"Treachery, if it please you," returned the keeper. "An asp which has been in our camp with its poison-fangs hid! No Moslem, but an enemy--a friend of this dotard poet!"

"Search him!" was the order.

The tools were found.

"Aha!" said the captain. "Most conclusive proof, wretch! We will teach you, knave, that foxes are sometimes trapped in their own wiles. Off with him! Chain him!"

Amzi was hurried off, and Asru strode away to execute some other act of so-called justice. He was a man of immense stature, heavy-featured, and covered with pock-marks, yet his face was full of strength of character, and bore traces of candor and honesty, though the lines about the mouth told of unrestrained cruelty and pa.s.sion.

At home Yusuf waited in an agony of suspense. The day pa.s.sed into night, the night into day, the day into night again, yet Amzi did not come.

Yusuf could bear it no longer. Anything was better than this awful waiting. Only once he almost gave up hope and cried in the words of the Psalmist, "O Lord, why castest thou off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from me?" Then like balm of healing came the words, "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain thee; he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved."