year of the Hejira, Mohammed made the
expected attack on Khaibar. The chief, Kenana, got word of his approach,
and ordered that the country for miles around the capital should be laid
waste. For days the long roads leading into the city from every
direction, swarmed with a moving line of anxious-faced people, driving
their camels and sheep ahead of them, and leading mules laden with
household property. Low wagons creaked beneath the weight of fodder for
the animals, and corn and dates for the people; and the loud "Yakh!
Yakh!" of the camel-drivers mingled with the thud of the camel-sticks
falling upon the thick hides of the lazy animals.

Asru was given charge of the expedition for laying waste the country;
and never was a more considerate destroyer.

"Here, here!" he would cry to an aged man, "let me load that animal for
you!" and he would lift the heavy burden to the back of the pack-mule,
while the old man would say, "You are surely a kind soldier after all."

"I will carry this sick girl," he would say, to another, and would lift
her as gently as a mother and place her in the shugduf in which she was
to be conveyed to the city.

His spirit of gentleness spread among his men.

"Let us be kind to our friends, men," he would urge upon them. "The day
is fast coming when we can scarcely be kind to our enemies, be we never
so willing."

So the people, though sad as they looked back upon their smouldering
homes and blazing palm trees, were filled with love for the gentle
soldiers, and went up with a new motive in striking for their liberty,
for there is naught that will bring forth the strongest powers of action
like the impulse of love.

Ah, the blight and misery of war! Manasseh looked out from the citadel
upon the scene which he had deemed so fair--the waving corn-fields, the
groves of palms and olives and aloes, the nestling houses, the pastures
covered with flocks--now but a blackened and smoking waste, with here
and there the skeleton of a palm tree pointing upward like a bony
finger; and here and there a reeking column of black smoke, or the dull
glare of a burning homestead.

The people murmured not. "Better let it lie in ashes than permit it to
fall into the hands of the impostor!" they cried, and they muttered
curses upon the head of the destroyer of their happiness and prosperity.

All were at last in and the anxious waiting began. Keen eyes peered from
the citadel night and day. Watchmen were posted a