Now it chanced that Sa’d, suffering from an arrow-wound inflicted during the late siege, was not in a pleasant frame of mind; and it has been surmised that Mohammed may have craftily reckoned on this very fact. “Proceed with thy judgment!” he commanded Sa’d. “Will ye, then,” inquired Sa’d of his tribesmen, “bind yourselves by the covenant of God that whatsoever I shall decide, ye will accept?” After they had murmured their assent, he spoke. “My judgment is that the men shall be put to death, the women and children sold into slavery, and the spoil divided amongst the army.” A torrent of objections was about to be poured forth, when the Prophet savagely commanded silence. “Truly the judgment of Sa’d is the judgment of God,” he declared, “pronounced on high from beyond the Seventh Heaven.” Trenches were dug that night, and next morning some seven or eight hundred men were marched out, forced to seat themselves in rows along the top of the trenches, were forthwith beheaded, and then tumbled into the long, gaping grave; the Prophet meanwhile looked on until, tiring of the monotonous spectacle, he departed to amuse himself with a Jewess whose husband had just perished. But poor Sa’d did not live long to enjoy his revenge; barely had he reached home when his wounds re-opened and he soon breathed his last. As he lay dying, the Prophet held him in his arms and prayed thus: “O Lord! Verily Sa’d hath labored in thy service. He hath believed in thy Prophet, and hath fulfilled his covenant. Wherefore do thou, O Lord, receive his spirit with the best reception wherewith thou receivest a departing soul!” Mohammed also helped to carry the coffin which, the bearers noted, was remarkably light for so heavy a man; but the Prophet explained the matter to the satisfaction of all. “The angels are carrying the bier, therefore it is light in your hands. Verily the throne on high doth vibrate for Sa’d, and the portals of heaven are opened, and he is attended by seventy thousand angels that never trod the earth before.” II Busily occupied though he had been for several years with the gradual subjugation of the Koreish, Mohammed had yet found time to compel a motley group of less important enemies to bow meekly beneath the yoke of Islam. The extinction of the Beni Koreiza had been but one link in the long chain of his conquests. His Meccan kinsmen had naturally been the first to be imperiously brushed aside; but other temporary impediments had occasionally blocked his way.