rave, mingled with the
blood and quivering flesh of those who followed. As one company after
another marched out and did not return, their chief man asked the Muslim
soldier concerning his countrymen's fate:

"Seest thou not that each company departs and is seen no more? Will ye
never understand?"

The doom of the Koreitza was wrought out to its terrible end, which was
not until set of sun. The number of butchered men is variously estimated,
but it cannot have been less than between 700 and 800.

So the Koreitza perished, each moving forward to meet the irremediable
without fear, without supplication, and when the carnage was over,
Mahomet turned to the distribution of the spoil. His eyes lighted upon
Rihana, a beautiful Jewess, and he desired her as solace after this
ruthless but necessary punishment. He offered her marriage; she refused,
and became of necessity and forthwith his concubine. Then he took the
possessions, slaves, and cattle of the vanquished tribe and divided them
among the Faithful, keeping a fifth part himself, and the land he
partitioned also. A few women who had found favour in the eyes of Muslim
were retained, the rest were sent to be sold as slaves among the Bedouin
tribes of Nejd. The Koreitza no longer existed; their treachery had been
visited again upon themselves.

The massacre of the Koreitza and the War of the Ditch cannot be viewed
apart. The ruthlessness of the former is the outcome of the success which
made it possible. Mahomet had defeated a most formidable attempt to
overthrow him, an attempt which would have lost much of its potency if
the Koreitza had remained either friendly or neutral, and in the triumph
which followed he sought to make such treachery henceforth impossible. He
never lost an opportunity; he saw that the Koreitza must be dealt with
instantly after the failure of the Meccan attack, and unhesitatingly he
accomplished his work.

His act is a plain proof of his increasing confidence in his mission and
in himself as ruler and emissary from on high. It speaks not only of his
barbarity and courage in the use of it when occasion arose, but also of
his tireless energy and swift perception of the right moment to strike.

His lack of compunction over the cruelty bears upon it the stamp of his
age and environment. The Koreitza were the enemies of Allah and his
Prophet; they had dared to betray him. Their doom was just. The result of
the failure of the Meccan attack was to re