a clever stroke of policy, though one extremely childlike, Mahomet for a time pretended to be angered at his lieutenant Abdallah, but it was plainly a pretense. Still, the passage from the Koran was as oil on troubled waters, and it must be plain to the most careless that Allah was very specific. Judge for yourself:
"They will ask thee concerning the sacred month, whether they may make war therein. Answer: To war therein is grievous; but to deny God, to bar the path of God against his people, to drive true believers from his holy temple, and to worship idols, are sins far more grievous than to kill in the holy months."
It was now, in a fashion, Mecca against Medina—Mahomet versus his arch foe, Abu Sofian, and a chance for revenge and enrichment offered when Abu was known to be conducting a caravan of a thousand camels with a troop of thirty horsemen. So forth went the men of Mahomet three hundred and fourteen strong and they camped in a fertile valley by the brook Beder. Somehow, Abu Sofian got wind of the projected surprise and sent word to summon relief from Mecca. There was a wild drumming, and shouting, and calling, and in a short while a force of a hundred horses and seven hundred camels was under way. Meanwhile, the caravan changed its course. Down on Mahomet and his men swept the men from Mecca, and contrary to all expectation, the superior force was defeated, and the leader, Aby Jahl, slain. Looked at in soberness, one finds cause for the unexpected result in the
