fy their
plighted words. Abdallah, the impetuous, would fain have shouted some
defiant words as the cavalcade neared the portals of the city, but Omar
restrained him and Mahomet gave the command.

"Speak ye only these words, 'There is no God but God; it is He that hath
upholden His servant. Alone hath He put to flight the hosts of the
Confederates.'"

So any tumult was prevented and the truce carried out.

Then began one of the most wonderful episodes ever written upon the pages
of history--nothing less than the peaceable emigration for three days of
a whole city before the hosts of one who but a little time since had fled
thence from the persecution of his fellows. All the Meccan armed
population retired to the hills and left their city free for the
completion of Mahomet's religious rites. With the sublimest faith in his
integrity they left their city defenceless at his feet. Truly the
Prophet's magnetism had won him many an adherent and secured him great
triumphs in warfare, but never had his power shone with such lustre as at
the time of his Fulfilled Pilgrimage. The city was left weaponless before
his soldiery, and the dwellers within its walls were content to
trust to the power of a written agreement, which in the hands of an
unscrupulous man would be as effective as a reed against a whirlwind.
Mahomet entered the city, and for three days pitched his tent of leather
beneath the shadow of the Kaaba. He made the sevenfold circuit thereof
and kissed the Black Stone. Thence he journeyed with all his followers to
Safa and Marwa, where he performed the necessary rites, and at which
latter place he sacrificed his victims, drawing them up in line between
himself and the city. Then returning there he asked for and obtained
the hand of Meimuna, sister-in-law of his uncle Abbas, a bold and
characteristic stroke which did much to pave the way for the later
conversion of his uncle and the final enrolment of the chief men of Mecca
upon his side.

This was the last marriage he contracted, and it shows, as so many other
alliances, his keen political foresight and the exercise of his favourite
method of attempting to win over hostile states. He was still the
political leader and schemer, though the ecstasy of religion, symbolised
for him just now in the rites of the Lesser Pilgrimage, had caught him
for the moment in its sweep. Public prayer was offered upon the third day
from the Kaaba itself, and with that the Pilgrimage ca