ly,
believing themselves surrounded by legions of invisible spirits. Amzi
and his little band stayed until the last; then, deserted by all and
blinded by the descending torrents, they, too, were obliged to withdraw,
and another victory, that of the Battle of the Ditch, had fallen to the
prophet.

This was the last expedition undertaken by the Koreish against their
victorious enemy. Mohammed, of course, attributed his great conquest to
divine agency. In a passage from the Koran he declared:

"O true believers, remember the favor of God toward you, when armies of
infidels came against you, and we sent against them a wind and hosts of
angels which ye saw not."

The heart sickens in following further Mohammed's willful career of
blood. During the following five years he is said to have commanded
twenty-seven expeditions and fought nine pitched battles. Against the
Christian Jews in particular the bitterest expressions of his hate were
directed; and to his dying day this incomprehensible man, from whose
lips proceeded words of mercy and of deadliest rancor, words of love and
of hate, words of purity and of gross sensuality--this strange man
persecuted them to the last, nor ever ceased to direct his arms against
all who followed that gentle Jesus of Nazareth of whose power this
blood-marked, self-proclaimed prophet of Allah was envious.

His followers, dazzled by the glare of his brilliant victories or
solicitous for self-preservation, constantly swelled in numbers, but
there were a few who, like Kedar, had heard of the peaceableness of the
religion of Jesus Christ, and who began to sicken of the flow of blood
which deluged the sands of El Hejaz, and ran even into the Nejd, the
borders of Syria, and of Arabia-Felix.

Kedar often longed for the friendly touch, the hearty, kindly words, of
the friends whom he had met and parted from as in a dream. He had soon
refused to believe in Mohammed's divine appointment. Even this Bedouin
youth had enough penetration to see that religion must stand upon its
results, and that the private life of Mohammed would not stand the test
of inspection. Fain would he have left his ranks many and many a time.
The brand of coward he knew could not be attached to him for leaving
victorious ranks to ally himself with the few and feeble Jews, yet there
was something in the idea of "turning his coat" which he did not like.
He imagined in a vague way that such a proceeding would compromise his
princ