the Kaba had convinced the Meccans that their gods--even Al-Ozza and Hubal--were as useless as so many dolls. And so, while the destruction of the helpless icons was enthusiastically carried out in every Meccan home--while Abu Sufyan’s wife, Hind, smashed her favorite god as energetically as she had once ripped Hamza’s vitals out, and further insulted the deity by the charge that it had vilely cheated her all her life--Mohammed, fatigued and dusty, retired to a corner of his tent and, as his daughter, Fatima, shielded him with a screen, gave himself a thorough bath. It is more than probable that the Koreish were immensely relieved and pleased with the quiet and almost bloodless subjugation of their city. In truth, although some of them became sycophants who cringed and fawned in order to win Mohammed’s good will, the majority doubtless took pride in the fact that their prodigal son, whose magnetic name was beginning to cause apprehension even beyond the borders of Arabia, had returned to demand his fatted calf. Their slumbers need never more be broken by nightmares of his precipitate assault upon them; further, the tiresome burden of ruling, or trying to rule, for the welfare of Mecca was now transferred to his gracious and omnipotent hand. As a religious but non-political capital, moreover, Mecca would be secure from whatever might betide in the shifting destinies of time. And they were right. Mohammed had won so easily, he had reached such an unapproachable eminence, that he could afford--it matters little whether from scrupulous policy or wholly unselfish generosity--to be magnanimous. If he directed the death of four ingrate Meccans, he proclaimed a general amnesty for all the rest; if he cast out idolatry, he substituted a religious ritualism which coalesced the leading dogmas of the various Meccan sects; and if he temporarily ruined Meccan commerce by his famously unscientific monkeying with the calculation of time--inasmuch as the pilgrimage months no longer always coincided with the period when caravan trade flourished--he bountifully blessed her with a permanent revenue that, after thirteen hundred years, still continues to pour into her coffers. For, as Islam has continued to prosper, all devout Moslems have at one time or another journeyed from every quarter of the globe to visit that “Navel of the Islamic faith” which seems to them to be the earthly replica of that indescribably glorious Paradise which awaits the faithful; and myriads of curious, and even irreverent, sightseers have perennially flocked thither to enjoy the endless diversion afforded by one of the greatest religious entertainments on the globe. [Illustration: X] MOHAMMED AND ALLAH I