Certain other tales may be accepted without too much over-scrupulous demur. As he lay alternately drawing the bed-clothes over his face and then tossing them off, he would shriek out unconnected sentences: “The Lord destroy the Jews and Christians!... O Lord, let not my tomb be ever an object of worship!... Verily the chiefest among you all for love and devotion to me is Abu Bekr. If I were to choose a bosom friend it would be he; but Islam hath made a closer brotherhood amongst us.... O my soul! Why seekest thou refuge elsewhere than in God alone?... Fetch me hither pen and ink, that I may make for you a writing which shall hinder you from going astray for ever.” On Monday he seemed a little better, but it was only the final flicker of the dying candle. Toward midday, as Ayesha sat holding his head tenderly on her bosom “between her lungs and her neck,” she noticed that his wandering eye had fixed upon a green toothpick; and, after chewing it so that it might be more pliable, she offered it to the dying man who used it for a moment with all his old vigor. But he soon began to sink rapidly, and, as though realizing the imminence of death, he called aloud: “O Lord, I beseech thee assist me in the agonies of death!” Then, while he spasmodically blew breath over his burning body, he thrice repeated, “Gabriel, come close unto me!” It is a regrettable fact that the interesting question of his final utterance must forever remain undecided. One authority declares that he expressed a wish to have concubines treated with consideration; but it is perhaps more appropriate to accept the story that, as consciousness slowly departed, he gently breathed: “Lord, grant me pardon; and join me to the blessed companionship on high. Eternity in Paradise!... Pardon!... The blessed companionship on high!...”--his head fell lower, a cold drop of moisture trickled down upon Ayesha’s breast, and all was over.