Chapter 20

THE BATTLE OF THE DITCH.

"Blood! blood! The leaves above me and around me Are red with blood."

In the year which followed, Mohammed's forces were more than once directed against Syrian caravans, and the plunder divided among the Moslem troops after one-fifth had been appropriated by the prophet; but otherwise the truce was unbroken, until at the end of the year, the Koreish, uniting with neighboring tribes, many of whom were Jews, formed the plan of a grand attack which was to free El Hejaz forever from the power of the Islam despot.

From the Caaba the call was given to all who could be appealed to through religion, through the interests of commerce, or through desire for blood-revenge in consequence of the battles of Bedr and Ohod. To the more earnest Jews the undertaking took the form of a vast religious war, undertaken against the hosts of Satan for the deliverance of a land in bondage; to the Meccan merchants it assumed the guise of a commercial transaction which would again restore the trade so long ruined by Mohammed's hostile measures; to the Koreish and the desert tribes it seemed the grand opportunity of clearing the honor stained by the unrevenged death of their friends.

Accordingly a host of volunteers to the number of one hundred thousand offered themselves, and the vast array set out. Among the volunteers were Yusuf, Amzi, Asru, and the valiant Manasseh, all of whom deemed the necessity of the hour a sufficient reason for entering upon a course foreign to the laws of peace which they would fain have seen established.

A mighty host it seemed in a land whose battles had chiefly been confined to skirmishes between different tribes. As it wound its way down the narrow valley, the women of Mecca stood upon the housetops, listening to the trampling, and beseeching their household gods to bless the enterprise.

Long ere they reached Medina the prophet had received word of their advance, and had had a ditch or entrenchment dug about the city as a sort of fortification.

Abu Sofian ordered his tents to be pitched below on the plain, and, this done, he at once laid siege to the city.

But his bad generalship ruined the undertaking. For a month he kept his men wholly inactive, and during that time Mohammed busied himself in sending emissaries in the midst of Abu Sofian's men for the purpose of sowing disaffection among them; and so completely was this done that the besieging force became hollow and rotten to its core. Tribe after tribe left. The few faithful besought their leader to permit them to attack the city, and when at last the order was given, but a feeble remnant of the original host remained. Notwithstanding this, the command "Forward!" was hailed with tumultuous joy, and the besiegers pressed forward in irregular yet serried masses.

Scarcely had the attack begun when a terrific storm arose. It was in the winter season, and a sudden hurricane of cold winds came shrieking through the gaps of the mountains to the north.

Amzi, having, as an influential Meccan, been appointed to the command of a division, charged boldly forward in the teeth of the tempest, waving his sword above his head and cheering his men on with his hopeful voice. Yusuf, Asru and Manasseh pressed forward close behind him. A cloud of arrows met them, yet they poured impetuously on. And now the bank was climbed and the conflict became almost hand-to-hand. The priest's tall form rendered him conspicuous in the fray. Some one came hacking and hewing his way towards him. It was the agile Uzza. The priest was beset on all sides and was defending himself against fearful odds, when the face of Uzza, fiend-like in its hate, burst upon him as a new opponent. He raised his weapon for a blow, but the vision of a Guebre altar upon which a little, bleeding child lay, rose before him, and his arm fell.

Uzza perceived his advantage. With a howl of triumph he cried, "False priest, you shall not escape me this time!" and made a fierce stroke with his scimitar. But the blow was parried.

"Simpleton! Would you let him kill you?" cried a harsh voice close by the priest. And the next moment Uzza fell with a death-groan at the feet of Asru.

And now the storm struck with full fury, howling among the houses of Medina, whistling shrilly on the upper air, and bending the palm trees low along its furious path. Thatches were torn from the roofs and carried whirling through the air; clouds of dust were blown high along the streets, and black, ragged clouds scurried across the sky as if urged on by demon-force. Horses neighed loudly. Many of them became unmanageable, and dashed, with terrified eyes and distended nostrils, through the midst of the flying soldiery. The tents of Abu Sofian were torn from their pegs and hurled away. Then the rain descended in sheets, or, whirled round by the wind, swirled along in columns with almost the force of a water-spout.

Suddenly a cry was raised: "It is Mohammed! The prophet has raised the storm by enchantment!"

The cry echoed from mouth to mouth above the roar of the tempest. The superstitious Arabs were seized with terror and fled precipitately, 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 principles of honor, and he had not reached the wisdom of that great educator, Comenius, who, not long ere his death, wrote a treatise upon "the art of wisely withdrawing one's own assertions." So he fought doggedly on, until circumstances again threw him into the bosom of his friends.