But once again Allah proved to be either absent-minded or very inconsiderate. As the Moslem soldiers neared the Dead Sea, they were amazed to learn that an enormous army, skilled in Roman methods of battle, was waiting to crush them. Conflicting counsels were offered; many wished to instruct the Prophet of this ill news and await his subsequent advice; but Abdallah ibn Rawaha roused the wilting courage of his fellows with these ringing words: “What have we marched thus far but for this? Is it in our numbers, or in the help of the Lord, that we put our trust? Victory or the martyr’s crown, one or other, is secure. _Then forward!_” His maniacal frenzy was imparted to his companions, who, meeting the powerful Roman phalanx at Muta close to the Red Sea, madly threw themselves upon the foe. Mohammed’s life-long friend Zeid, who had most unwillingly relinquished Zeinab in favor of the Prophet, bravely bore the white Moslem banner until he willingly relinquished his life for Islam. Jafar, another Moslem hero, then seized the inspiring piece of cloth and, shouting out: “Paradise! O Paradise! how fair a resting-place! Cold is the water there, and sweet the shade,” was shortly able to test the truth of his pæan. Abdallah ibn Rawaha then fell in turn, bearing the flag to the ground with him; at this moment Khalid demonstrated the genuineness of his recent conversion by rallying the terrorized Moslems and immediately speeding toward Medina with the fragments of the army. The Medinese, deeply dismayed at the rout, found some relief by hurling dust and jeering taunts at the truants; but Mohammed put a stop to their meanness in this fashion: “Nay, these are not runaways; they are men who will yet again return to battle, if the Lord will.” Struck to the heart by the loss of so many tried companions, he first went to Jafar’s house, where, clasping the dead man’s children in his arms, he sobbed bitterly; departing thence to the home of Zeid, he broke down completely when Zeid’s little daughter threw herself tearfully into his arms. “Why thus, O Prophet?” asked one person, who inconveniently recalled Mohammed’s many injunctions that Moslems should not display their sorrow at the times of death. “This is not forbidden grief,” was the response, “it is but the fond yearning in the heart of friend for friend.” Yet next morning, as he worshiped in the Mosque, he smiled and remarked: “That which ye saw in me yesterday was because of sorrow for the slaughter of my Companions, until I saw them in Paradise, seated as brethren, opposite one another, upon couches. And in some I perceived marks, as it were wounds of the sword. And I saw Jafar as an angel with two wings, covered with blood--his limbs stained therewith.”