Clemency, he claimed, had been the instrument of Moses; wisdom, that of Solomon; righteousness, that of Christ; and now the sword was to be the instrument of Mohammed.

“The sword,” he exclaimed, with flashing eye, “is the key of heaven and hell.  All who draw it in the cause of the faith will be rewarded with temporal advantages; every drop shed of their blood, every peril endured by them, will be registered on high as more meritorious than fasting or prayer.  If they fall in battle, their sins will at once be blotted out, and they will be transported to paradise!”

This fierce, intolerant spirit took possession of Mohammed almost from his entrance into Medina.  Chapter after chapter of the Koran was produced, breathing the same blood-thirsty, implacable hatred of opposition.  Mohammed, in fact, seemed like one possessed in his enthusiasm, but his doctrines caught the fancy of the wild, impressionable Arabs, who flocked to him in crowds as his fame spread throughout the length and breadth of El Hejaz, throughout the Nejd, and even to the extremities of Arabia-Felix.

And now the bloody cloud of war hovered over the peninsula, and the people trembled.

The following letter from Amzi will describe the outbreak.

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    From Amzi the Meccan, at Medina,
                              To Yusuf the priest, Mecca.

    My Dear Yusuf:—­

I can scarcely describe the emotions with which I write you again after a six months’ interval.  Affairs here in Medina have taken such an unlooked-for turn that I scarcely know what to think or what to do.

Of Mohammed’s wonderful progress, you have, of course, heard.  You should see him now, my dear Yusuf,—­Mohammed, the peaceful trader, the devout hermit, now little less than monarch, with all the sway assumed by the most powerful despot; and yet those over whom he wields his despotism are but too willing servants, ready to say as he says, and to give their dearest heart’s blood in his cause.

Indeed I know not what the outcome of it all will be.  What astonishes me most is that Mohammed has suddenly assumed an aggressive attitude.  Fire and the sword seem to be the watchword of him whom we knew as the gentle husband of Cadijah, the mild preacher who bowed his head and reviled not even when assailed with mud and filth in the Caaba.

Needless to say, Yusuf, I am disappointed in him.  You will be only too glad to hear that.  I hear that you have been exhorting the people in Mecca to pay no heed to him; that you have been seeking to promulgate your Hebrew faith, or rather the faith of your Hebrew friend, of whose innocence and release I was glad to hear.

My brother, I pride in your courage, and in the strength of your principles; yet, Yusuf, I beseech of you, be careful what you do or say, lest you draw down upon your head a storm of fury which