For the next three days, the two men lay in concealment in a neighboring cave, while the distracted Koreish feverishly sought everywhere for them. The house of Abu Bekr was searched, but when his daughter Asma was asked, “Where is thy father?” she innocently replied, “Truly, I know not where he is”--whereupon Abu Jahl, a ferocious and impudent fellow, “slapped her on the face with such force that one of her earrings dropped.” Meanwhile the two outcasts lurked in the secrecy of the cave, across whose entrance, we are informed, a divinely commissioned spider wove a protecting web; yet legends are often more industrious than spiders. Abu Bekr would shake with fear and breathe the low whisper, “What if one were to look through the chink, and see us underneath his very feet?” to which the Prophet would boldly reply: “Think not thus, Abu Bekr! We are two, but God is in the midst a third.” Yet Mohammed loved Abu “more than all the world; he held no one equal unto him,” sang the poet Hassan; and the generally taciturn and morose Prophet, listening to the song, was pleased and laughed so heartily that he held his sides and his back teeth became visible. “Thou hast spoken truly, O Hassan!” he remarked after he had recovered his breath, “it is just as thou hast said.” After three days had passed without their detection, it seemed safe to speed toward Medina. The careful Abu Bekr had fetched a purse, bulging with thousands of gold pieces, as well as two of his best camels; and, probably on the night of June 20, they mounted the beasts--Mohammed taking care to choose the swifter one, Al-Kaswa--and started on the perilous journey. The two-hundred-odd miles that they must traverse extended over a parched, barren, inexpressibly desolate and mournful waste, where only such rugged trees as the tamarind and acacia could exist, where phantom mirages mocked the eye, and all nature was but a ribbed and menacing skeleton. They traveled chiefly at night, resting during the sweltering heat of the day and buying provisions from such scattered Bedouins as they chanced to encounter. Abu Bekr, who was well known to most of these desert dwellers, was frequently asked who his friend was, and he regularly made the answer, “A guide to lead me,” while the diplomatic Prophet kept a strict silence.