This business concluded, the embassy from Mecca retraced its way; and Mohammed, changing his mind about entering the city at that time, ordered that prayers should be offered up on the spot, that seventy camels should there be sacrificed, and that the pilgrims should then return home. This was accordingly done, and the people went back in some disappointment to Medina, where the prophet announced the success of his mission in a new passage from the Koran: "Now hath God verified unto his apostle the vision wherein he said, Ye shall surely enter the holy temple of Mecca, if God please, in full security." CHAPTER XXIV. THE SIEGE OF KHAIBAR.--KEDAR. "The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding seas of gore." In the same year, the seventh year of the Hejira, Mohammed made the expected attack on Khaibar. The chief, Kenana, got word of his approach, and ordered that the country for miles around the capital should be laid waste. For days the long roads leading into the city from every direction, swarmed with a moving line of anxious-faced people, driving their camels and sheep ahead of them, and leading mules laden with household property. Low wagons creaked beneath the weight of fodder for the animals, and corn and dates for the people; and the loud "Yakh! Yakh!" of the camel-drivers mingled with the thud of the camel-sticks falling upon the thick hides of the lazy animals. Asru was given charge of the expedition for laying waste the country; and never was a more considerate destroyer. "Here, here!" he would cry to an aged man, "let me load that animal for you!" and he would lift the heavy burden to the back of the pack-mule, while the old man would say, "You are surely a kind soldier after all." "I will carry this sick girl," he would say, to another, and would lift her as gently as a mother and place her in the shugduf in which she was to be conveyed to the city. His spirit of gentleness spread among his men. "Let us be kind to our friends, men," he would urge upon them. "The day is fast coming when we can scarcely be kind to our enemies, be we never so willing." So the people, though sad as they looked back upon their smouldering homes and blazing palm trees, were filled with love for the gentle soldiers, and went up with a new motive in striking for their liberty, for there is naught that will bring forth the strongest powers of action like the impulse of love. Ah, the blight and misery of war! Manasseh looked out from the citadel upon the scene which he had deemed so fair--the waving corn-fields, the groves of palms and olives and aloes, the nestling houses, the pastures covered with flocks--now but a blackened and smoking waste, with here and there the skeleton of a palm tree pointing upward like a bony finger; and here and there a reeking column of black smoke, or the dull glare of a burning homestead.