The Days of Mohammed Part 21

"For once, Yusuf, your eyes have played you false. How could you have believed such a thing of Mana.s.seh?"

"A strange resemblance!" mused Yusuf; then--"Whom see I before me yonder?"

"Mana.s.seh's eyes do not play him false, and he declares it to be Amzi,"

said the youth.

They hastened up the narrow street, now crowded with soldiers, prisoners, camels, and horses; and, escaping the missiles thrown by infuriated Moslem women from the housetops, soon overtook Amzi and Asru.

All proceeded at once to the camp of Abu Sofian.

Some large tents were set apart for the wounded Koreish, and here Yusuf and Amzi found speedy occupation in binding wounds, and giving drinks of water to the parched soldiers. Mana.s.seh entered with them.

"What means this?" cried Henda. "Did I not have you conveyed, soaked with blood, among the wounded of the Koreish?"

"I have not been wounded to-day," returned Mana.s.seh. "Read me this riddle, Henda. There must be a second self--"

"Here, Mana.s.seh!" interrupted Yusuf from one side. "Had you a twin brother, this must be he."

Yusuf was bending over a youth whose dark eyes spoke of suffering, and who lay listlessly permitting the priest to bathe his blood-covered brow. His eyes were fixed on Mana.s.seh, who was quickly coming forward, and those near wondered at the striking resemblance, more marked than is often found between brothers.

"Who are you, friend?" asked Mana.s.seh, curiously.

"Kedar the Bedouin!" returned the youth, proudly. "Though how I came into a Koreish camp, is more than I can explain."

"For that you may thank your resemblance to me," laughed Mana.s.seh. "You are weak, Kedar, my proud Bedouin, and we will ask you to talk but little; yet, I pray you, tell me, who was your father?"

"Musa, the Bedouin Sheikh,"--haughtily.

"And your mother was Lois, daughter of Eleazar?"

"Even so," returned the other, wonderingly.

"My cousin!" exclaimed Mana.s.seh, delightedly seizing his hand.

"And son of my Bedouin friend, Musa!" exclaimed Yusuf.

So the Bedouin youth, the rash, hot-headed Moslem recruit, found himself among friends in a Koreish camp.

Night had now fallen, and under cover of darkness, Mohammed's army silently returned to Medina.

There were those who censured the prophet for his conduct at this battle; and some even dared to charge him with deception in promising them victory. But Mohammed told them that defeat was due to their sins: "Verily, they among you who turned their backs on the day whereon the two armies met at Ohod, Satan caused them to slip for some crime which they had committed."

To quiet those who lamented for their slain friends, he brought forth the doctrine that the time of every man's death is fixed by divine decree, and that he must meet it at that time, wherever he be.

In the morning the majority of Abu Sofian's forces set out for Mecca.

Among them were Yusuf and Amzi, also Asru the captain; and it was with no small sense of comfort that the half-starved prisoners sat again about Amzi's well-stocked board.

Mana.s.seh was with them. Kedar, scorning to desert the Moslem army, had refused to leave Medina, and, by the earnest intercession of Yusuf and Amzi, whose word was of some import in Meccan ears, he had been given his freedom.

It was with deep relief that all felt the short respite from the blare of battle; and, though they looked forward to the future with anxious forebodings, and though their joy was clouded by the death of Dumah, they were thankful for present blessings. Not alone prayer, but praise, was an essential part of their religion, and their voices ascended in song,--

I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in thy mouth.

My soul shall make her boast in the Lord; the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.

O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.

I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

They looked unto him, and were lightened; and their faces were not ashamed.

This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

O fear the Lord, ye his saints; for there is no want to them that fear him.

CHAPTER XX.

THE BATTLE OF THE DITCH.

"Blood! blood! The leaves above me and around me Are red with blood."

In the year which followed, Mohammed's forces were more than once directed against Syrian caravans, and the plunder divided among the Moslem troops after one-fifth had been appropriated by the prophet; but otherwise the truce was unbroken, until at the end of the year, the Koreish, uniting with neighboring tribes, many of whom were Jews, formed the plan of a grand attack which was to free El Hejaz forever from the power of the Islam despot.

From the Caaba the call was given to all who could be appealed to through religion, through the interests of commerce, or through desire for blood-revenge in consequence of the battles of Bedr and Ohod. To the more earnest Jews the undertaking took the form of a vast religious war, undertaken against the hosts of Satan for the deliverance of a land in bondage; to the Meccan merchants it a.s.sumed the guise of a commercial transaction which would again restore the trade so long ruined by Mohammed's hostile measures; to the Koreish and the desert tribes it seemed the grand opportunity of clearing the honor stained by the unrevenged death of their friends.

Accordingly a host of volunteers to the number of one hundred thousand offered themselves, and the vast array set out. Among the volunteers were Yusuf, Amzi, Asru, and the valiant Mana.s.seh, all of whom deemed the necessity of the hour a sufficient reason for entering upon a course foreign to the laws of peace which they would fain have seen established.

A mighty host it seemed in a land whose battles had chiefly been confined to skirmishes between different tribes. As it wound its way down the narrow valley, the women of Mecca stood upon the housetops, listening to the trampling, and beseeching their household G.o.ds to bless the enterprise.

Long ere they reached Medina the prophet had received word of their advance, and had had a ditch or entrenchment dug about the city as a sort of fortification.

Abu Sofian ordered his tents to be pitched below on the plain, and, this done, he at once laid siege to the city.

But his bad generalship ruined the undertaking. For a month he kept his men wholly inactive, and during that time Mohammed busied himself in sending emissaries in the midst of Abu Sofian's men for the purpose of sowing disaffection among them; and so completely was this done that the besieging force became hollow and rotten to its core. Tribe after tribe left. The few faithful besought their leader to permit them to attack the city, and when at last the order was given, but a feeble remnant of the original host remained. Notwithstanding this, the command "Forward!"

was hailed with tumultuous joy, and the besiegers pressed forward in irregular yet serried ma.s.ses.

Scarcely had the attack begun when a terrific storm arose. It was in the winter season, and a sudden hurricane of cold winds came shrieking through the gaps of the mountains to the north.

Amzi, having, as an influential Meccan, been appointed to the command of a division, charged boldly forward in the teeth of the tempest, waving his sword above his head and cheering his men on with his hopeful voice.

Yusuf, Asru and Mana.s.seh pressed forward close behind him. A cloud of arrows met them, yet they poured impetuously on. And now the bank was climbed and the conflict became almost hand-to-hand. The priest's tall form rendered him conspicuous in the fray. Some one came hacking and hewing his way towards him. It was the agile Uzza. The priest was beset on all sides and was defending himself against fearful odds, when the face of Uzza, fiend-like in its hate, burst upon him as a new opponent.

He raised his weapon for a blow, but the vision of a Guebre altar upon which a little, bleeding child lay, rose before him, and his arm fell.