The woman listened. With the quick appreciation of the Arab for metaphor and simile, she grasped the meaning of the words, and a new, wonderful train of thought came into her mind as she sat with bowed head while simple, pleading, heart-offered prayer was sent up to the Throne of Grace, and the parting hymn was sung.
Then the little band gathered around her, speaking words of cheer, and the aged leader dismissed her with a gentle, "Come again, daughter."
As Sherah and her mother walked home, the last remnant of the fearful storm that had visited Medina passed over Mecca. They saw the ragged clouds borne wildly over the northern hills; they saw the stunted aloes bending low beneath the sweep of the wind. Yet to them there was a grandeur in it, for there was still upon them the influence of the Divine presence, and they thought of Him who "walketh upon the wings of the wind."
And as they went on, bowing their heads before its spent fury, Asru, Amzi, and Yusuf, far to the northward, struggled on with the fugitive army, wondering at the continued triumph of the false prophet, yet serene in the confidence that in the Divine Hands all was well, and that in the far-distant end, however blurred to human vision, all must work for good to those who love God, even though the reason of his working, the seeming mystery of the fortunes of the great conflict, might not be unravelled until in the bright hereafter, when all things will at last be made plain.
CHAPTER XXII.
MANASSEH AND ASRU AT KHAIBAR.
"Spirit of purity and grace,
Our weakness, pitying, see!
O make our hearts thy dwelling-place,
And worthier Thee."
The Koreish, after their disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Ditch, returned in bitter disappointment to Mecca. Many even of the bravest of the tribe felt that it was hopeless to strive against the prophet, whose phenomenal success seemed to render his troops invincible. Many, too, with the superstition at all times common to the Arabs, were in deadly dread of his "enchantments," and were only too ready to listen to his bold assertions that the momentous storm at the siege of Medina had been caused in his favor by heavenly agency; that a great host of angels had been in invisible co-operation with the Moslems and had drawn their legions about the ill-fated company, crying, "God is great!" and striking panic to the hearts of the besiegers.