If, however, he was safe from direct assault, the more humble of his auxiliaries--the slaves, strangers and lower classes--who lacked the protection of family ties, were not so fortunate. They were apprehended, beaten and jailed, or exposed to the terrific heat of the sun. Under torments of this sort, some of them naturally recanted--a contingency that necessitated swift measures on the part of Allah. Mohammed, sincerely moved by their sufferings, announced that, even though they dissembled to escape torture, Allah was nevertheless All-Merciful and Forgiving if their hearts were right; and a Sura forthwith appeared that poured divine wrath on every backslider, “excepting him who is forcibly compelled thereto, his heart remaining steadfast in the faith.” One day the Prophet met an adherent who was weeping from the anguish of his wounds, and asked what the trouble was. “Evil, O Prophet! They would not let me go until I had abused thee, and spoken well of their gods.” “But how dost thou find thine own heart?” “Secure and steadfast in the faith.” “Then if they repeat their cruelty, repeat thou also thy words,” advised Mohammed. Yet, in spite of this heavenly leniency, incessant persecution continued to diminish his little band, and he therefore counselled those who were defenseless to take refuge in Abyssinia. Some of them did so, but still the odious oppression continued. The Prophet, in this desperate strait, seems to have resolved upon a desperate remedy. It is at all events true that, scarcely three months after the departure of the little company of refugees, he tried to effect a compromise with his implacable foes. Approaching a group of the Koreish in Mecca one day, he reeled off a Sura which contained the flattering information that some of their gods, and particularly their goddesses, were not so bad after all. Having enumerated several of them, he intoned this passage: “These are exalted Females, Whose intercession verily is to be sought after.” At the end of this strange encounter, Mohammed and his hearers promptly prostrated themselves and worshiped their individually pampered deities in a spirit of beautiful brotherhood.