Now the Thamudites ordered ten midwives to attend on the women in their confinement, and if a child were born with the signs indicated by the prophet, it was to be destroyed instantly.
Nine children had thus been killed, and the parents conceived a deadly animosity against Saleh the prophet, and formed a design to slay him.
One of the chiefs among the Thamudites had a son born to him with red hair and blue eyes, and the nurses would have destroyed it, but the nine men spake to the father of the child, and they banded together, and saved the infant.
Now when this child had attained the age of eleven, he became great and handsome; and each of the parents whose children had been put to death, when he saw him, said, “Such an one would have been my son, had not he been slain at the instigation of Saleh.” And they combined to put the prophet to death. They said among themselves, “We will kill him outside the city, and returning, say we were elsewhere when he was murdered.”
Having formed this project, they left the city and placed themselves under a rock, awaiting his exit from the gates. But God commanded the rock, and it fell and crushed them all.
Next day their corpses were recovered, but the Thamudites were very wroth, and said, “Saleh has slain our children, and now he slays our men;” and they added, “We will be revenged on his camel.”
But no one could be found to undertake the execution of this deed, save the red-haired child. He went to the fountain where the camel was drinking, and with one kick he knocked her over, and with another kick he despatched her.
But the foal, seeing the fate of her mother, ran away, and the boy with the red hair and blue eyes ran after her.
Saleh, seeing what had taken place, cried, “The judgment of God is about to fall.”
The people were frightened, and asked, “What shall we do?”