Among the opponents who singled him out for attack was a youth mounted on a horse of equal power and agility.  The youth was rather slight, but his skill in thrusting and in averting strokes, and his evidence of practice in every exercise of the lance, rendered him a fitting adversary for the priest with his superior strength.

For some time their combat had gone on single-handed, when the youth’s head-dress falling off revealed a face strikingly familiar to Yusuf.  It was Manasseh’s own face, pale, and with clots of blood upon it!

The priest was horror-stricken.  He forbore to thrust, and the youth, seizing the opportunity, made a quick lunge, piercing the priest’s shoulder, and felling him to the ground.  A new opponent came and engaged the youth’s attention; the panic fell, and the priest, seeing that it was useless to remain, managed to mount and ride off after the retreating troops.

Scarcely injured, yet covered with blood, he dismounted at Amzi’s door in Medina.

“Yusuf!  My brother!” cried the Meccan in astonishment, “what means this?”

In a few words Yusuf told the tale of the battle, and Amzi placed him comfortably upon a soft couch, insisting upon ministering to him as though he had been severely wounded.

“So, Yusuf the gentle too has become a seeker of man’s blood!” he said.  “Verily, what an effect hath this degenerate age!”

“Believe me, friend,” returned the other, earnestly, “you too would have gone had you been in Mecca and had heard of our poor friends, all unarmed, and apparently in the power of the enemy.  When the advance to Bedr was ordered, I was one under authority, and had no choice but to submit, though I had little enough love for the stench of blood.”

“Yet,” returned Amzi, “Yusuf’s life is too precious to be risked in such madness.  It is not necessary for him to court death; for the time may soon come when he shall be forced to fight in self-defence.  Till then, let foolish youths dash to the lance’s point if they will.”

Yusuf bowed his head, and in a low tone replied:  “’O God, the Lord, the strength of my salvation, thou hast covered my head in the day of battle.  He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me.  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.  He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress:  my God; in him will I trust.’  Amzi, whether in life or in death, it shall be as he wills.”

Amzi looked at him curiously.  “Yusuf,” he said, “is there no extremity of your life in which your religion fails to give you comfort?  It seems to furnish you with words befitting every occasion.”