The Days of Mohammed Part 26

Mana.s.seh uttered an exclamation of horror.

"Why not?" she said, with a laugh. "Mana.s.seh fights with a lance, Zaynab with poison. Now, fly, ere they see you!"

Mana.s.seh hastened down the dark streets to the house in which Kedar had been placed. He found the youth moaning feebly. Hurrying out, he caught a couple of stray camels, and fastened a shugduf in its place. Then, raising the youth in his strong arms, he laid him in the shugduf, and set off in the darkness.

To Mecca he must go. It was a long, weary way. He had little money, and the few provisions which a Jewish woman in the house gave him would not last long; yet he trusted to Providence, and remembered with satisfaction that the dates were now at their ripest. He would nurse Kedar tenderly; they would journey in the cool shades of night when there was less danger of being stopped on the way. Planning thus, he proceeded, as noiselessly as possible, with his precious burden, through a gap in the wall, and urged his faithful beasts on in the cool night breezes over the blackened plain.

Then he thought of Asru. Asru must not be left to be rudely thrown into a grave by infidel hands. There was danger in it, but he must go back.

Kedar was sleeping. He fixed the camels by a charred palm grove, and went back, with flying feet, through the gloom. The towers of Al Kamus rose above him, with lights twinkling on the battlements. He wondered if the prophet were yet alive and what would be the result to Arabia if he were dead. On, on, through the darkness, until the fatal breach was reached. It was quite deserted, peopled only by a heap of dead bodies, from which, in the night time, the superst.i.tious Arabs shrank in horror.

Groping among them, he soon came upon Asru's huge form, which he readily recognized by its armor. He dragged the precious clay of his friend from the ma.s.s of dead and brought it, with difficulty, outside of the wall; and there beneath a palm tree, he hollowed out a lonely grave, loosening the clay with a battle-axe taken from a dead Arab, and throwing the clods out with his shield. He then cut a wisp of hair from the dead soldier's long locks, placed it in his bosom, kissed the cold brow, and uttered a short prayer over the lifeless form. Tenderly he placed the body in the shallow grave, and covered it with the clay, then, breathing a last farewell, left Asru forever in this life.

In the meantime Mohammed and one of his followers had begun to eat of the poisoned mutton. The soldier was ravenous with hunger, and set upon the tempting roast with eager relish. Mohammed partook of it more slowly.

Suddenly the soldier threw up his arms, and fell back in a convulsion.

Mohammed started back in consternation. He, too, felt pain, and raised the cry of "Poison!" The Moslems came rushing in in great alarm.

Antidotes were given him, and he shortly recovered, with but a slight sensation of burning in his head. The poor soldier was soon stiff in death.

Mohammed sent for the woman who had brought him the mutton. She came at once.

"Know you who put the poison in this meat?" he asked.

"It was I," she confessed, boldly.

"And how dared you perpetrate so wicked a scheme?"

"If you were a true prophet," she replied, "you would have known that the meat was poisoned; if not, it were a favor to Arabia to rid it of such a despot."

"See then," exclaimed the prophet, "how Allah hath preserved the life of his apostle! Behold, I forgive you. Return to your tribe, and sin not in like manner again."

So saying, with one of his strange freaks of magnanimity, he waved her off, and soon afterward went to rest.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXV.

MANa.s.sEH AND KEDAR AT MECCA.

"Home, sweet home."

The flame of a smoky oil-dip dimly lighted a s.p.a.cious room in the house of Amzi. At the low table sat Yusuf and his friend with a chart before them, anxiously following, with eye and finger, the course of Mohammed's northern exploits.

The thoughts of both were with Mana.s.seh. A knock sounded at the bolted door. Yusuf opened it, and there, like a cameo in the setting of darkness, was the youth himself.

"Mana.s.seh, my son!" cried both in astonishment.

He stepped in, now laughing, now brushing tears from his eyes. "There!"

he said, freeing himself from their embraces, "I have one more surprise.

I come like a grandee, bearing my company in a litter. Help me bring him in."

They stepped out, and Mana.s.seh's second face, that of Kedar, peered from the curtains of the shugduf. None the less warm was the greeting extended to the Moslem, whose weak and trembling frame was an instant call upon their sympathy.

"Now," said Mana.s.seh, piling up a heap of cushions, in his impetuous way, "get us some supper, will you not? I can eat my own share, and half of Kedar's. Like the birds, he takes but a peck at a time."

Supper was ordered, and soon attendants entered bearing platters, until the copper table was burdened with the most tempting dishes of Mecca--roast of spiced lamb, slices of juicy melon and cuc.u.mber, pyramids of rice, pomegranates, grapes of Tayf, sweetmeats, fragrant draughts of coffee.

Kedar watched with a languid smile. The peace of this quiet home life affected him almost to tears. Strange had been his emotions when he awoke to consciousness in the shugduf, alone with Mana.s.seh, in the wilderness--feelings first of indignation, then of grat.i.tude, then of admiration for Mana.s.seh, in whom he now discovered the leader of the Jewish horse. And on the way this admiration had ripened into love for the unselfish Jewish youth.

The weariness of the long journey began to tell upon him now, and he was glad that he was among friends. He could eat but little, and was content to listen to Mana.s.seh's bright talk, and to watch him as, with flashing eye and eloquent gesture, he fought over again the Battle of Khabar, or when, with hushed tone and tearful eye, he told of the death of Asru, and his lonely burial.

"I must seek his widow and his children," said he. "This is all I have brought them;" and he drew the tangled, blood-stained lock of hair from his bosom.

Silence fell on the little group as they looked upon it, then Yusuf's tones, falling like the low, deep cadence of a chant, repeated the words:

"And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of G.o.d and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him. And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord G.o.d giveth them light; and they shall reign forever and forever."

"Amen!" responded Amzi, fervently. And Mana.s.seh looked out of the window towards the bright heavens above Abu Kubays, imagining that he could see Asru, clad in shining apparel, with a happy smile on his lips, and the courageous eyes of old looking forth with a new love-light from his radiant countenance.

"Do you know his family?" he asked.

"Ah, yes; they are now regular attendants at the Christian church. They have destroyed all their household G.o.ds."

"What!" exclaimed Mana.s.seh, "is this true! How I wish Asru had known it!

What joy it would have given him!"

Amzi smiled. "Dare you think, Mana.s.seh, that he does not know it long ere this,--that he did not know it even at the breach of Khabar? I like to think that our Asru now has a spiritual body wholly independent of time or s.p.a.ce, capable of transporting itself whenever and wherever the mind dictates."

"We cannot know these things as they are, in this time," remarked Yusuf.

"But the day is not very far distant now, Amzi, when you and I shall explore these mysteries for ourselves."

So the talk went on. Kedar listened with interest. He thought it a curious conversation, and felt so strangely out of place that it seemed as though he were dreaming, and listening to the talk of genii.

Next morning he was in a decided fever. Then came long days of pain and nights of delirium, in which Mana.s.seh and his two friends hovered like ministering spirits about the youth, whose wounds had healed only to give place to disease far more deadly. In those terrible nights of burning heat his parched tongue swelled so that he could scarcely swallow; he tossed in agony, now fancying himself chained to a rock unable to move, while the prophet urged him on to the heights above where the battle was raging; now imagining himself fastened near a burning furnace whose flames were fed by the bodies of those whom he had slain. He would cry out in terror, and beads of perspiration would start upon his forehead. He lived the whole war over again, and his only rest was at times when, partially conscious, he felt kindly hands placing cool bandages on his burning head, or gently fanning his face.

The time at last came when he sank into a heavy sleep, and awoke calling "Mother."

It was Mana.s.seh who came, almost startled by the naturalness of the tone.

"I have been very ill, Mana.s.seh?"

"Very."

"Long?"

"For weeks. But you must not talk. You will soon be well now."