Two thousand men gathered round him to participate in the important ceremony which was for them the visible sign of their kinship with the sacred city, and its ultimate religious absorption in their own all-conquering creed.  They were clad in the dress of pilgrims, and carried with them only the sheathed sword of their compact for defence.  But a body of men brought up the rear, themselves in armour, driving before them pack-camels, whereon rested arms and munitions of all kinds.  Sixty camels were taken for sacrifice, and Mahomet, son of Maslama, with one hundred horse formed the vanguard, so as to prove a defence should the passions of the Kureisch overcome their discretion and nullify 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 came to an end.  Mahomet tried earnestly to win over and conciliate the Meccans during this meagre three days’ sojourn, but his task was beyond the power even of his magnificent energy.