Dumah heard the exclamation, and was off like the wind, followed by two or three Moslems, each anxious to secure the victim first, and thus win the approval of the august Mohammed. On, on, straight to the house of Amzi fled Dumah. Bursting open the door, he rushed in, his long hair disordered, his face purple with running and his eyes wide with terror. "Save me, Yusuf! Save me, Amzi!" he cried. "Mohammed will kill me! Mohammed will kill me!" Yusuf sprang to the door, and the poor fugitive threw himself at Amzi's feet, clinging to his garments with his thin, white hands. But the pursuers were already upon him. Yusuf strove in vain to detain them, to reason with them. "Can you not see he is a poor artless lad? Can you not have mercy?" he cried. "It is the order of the prophet of Allah!" was the response. Yusuf resisted their entrance with all his might, but, unarmed as he was, he was quickly thrown down, and the terrified Dumah was dragged over his body and hurried off to be put in chains in a Moslem cell. Amzi was distracted. There seemed little hope for Dumah. The small Jewish band then in Medina could not dare to cope with the overwhelming numbers of Moslems that swarmed in the streets. If Dumah were delivered it must be by stratagem; and yet what stratagem could be employed? Early in the evening Amzi and the priest withdrew to the roof for consultation. "You believe that your God is all-powerful--why do you not beseech him for our poor lad's safety?" cried Amzi passionately. "I have not ceased to do so since his capture," returned Yusuf. "But it must be as the Lord willeth. He sees what is best. Even our blessed Jesus said to the Father, 'Not my will, but thine be done.'" Amzi was not satisfied. "Can he then be the God of Love that you say, if he could look upon the death of that poor innocent nor exercise his power to save him?" "Amzi, I do not wonder at you for speaking thus. Yet consider. We will hope the best for our poor singer. May God preserve him and enable us, as instruments in his hands, to deliver him. But God may see differently from us in this matter. Who can say that to die would not be gain to poor Dumah? All witless as he is, he shall have a perfect mind and a perfect body in the bright hereafter. We know not what is well. We can only pray and do all in our power to effect his deliverance; we must leave the issue to God." Amzi bowed his head on his hands and groaned. Yusuf raised his eyes towards heaven; the tears rolled down his cheeks, and his lips moved. Even he could not understand the mysteries of this strange time. Yet he was constantly comforted in knowing that "all things work together for good to them that love God." Saddest of all was the vision of the handsome, dark face that, contorted in the fury of combat, had glared upon him from the Moslem ranks in the Battle of Bedr, while Manasseh's hand showered blows upon the head of his best friend--for the sake of the prophet of Islam.