The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE BATTLE OF OHOD.
"Dost thou not know the fate of soldiers?
They're but Ambition's tools, to cut a way
To her unlawful ends."
—Southern.
While these events had been taking place in the North, Henda had given Abu Sofian little peace, urging him every day to pay the dues of blood-revenge for her relatives, and taunting him with cowardice in his long delay.
At length, in the third year of the Hegira he gathered a considerable army, and with three thousand men of the Koreish tribe, among whom were two hundred horsemen, left Mecca, accompanied by Henda and fifteen of the matrons of Mecca bearing timbrels and singing war-like chants.