Less lucky, Durayd, the Infidels' second leader, was unable to escape his fate. Ninety years of age and blind, he was unable to direct his camel when abandoned by his panic-stricken fellow-countrymen, and he fell into the hands of a mere lad, Rabi'a ibn Rafia. When he saw the litter in which reclined this celebrated warrior, paralysed by the infirmities of great age, the youth thought he had captured a woman. He made the camel kneel, parted the hangings and was petrified at only finding an old man. Vexed and disappointed, he dealt Durayd a sabre-cut, but the aged fighter did not even seem to know that he had been struck. 'What sort of weapon hath thy mother placed in thy hands, O little vagabond?' he asked in accents of supreme scorn. 'Take my sabre, hanging from my camel's saddle. Lift the blade aloft and hit between the vertebrae of the back and those of the head. That was how I used to strike men down.' Abashed at his first failure, Rabi'a followed this piece of advice and the famous warrior rolled dead in the dust. Urged on by the spur of victory, the Prophet pursued the fugitives to the foot of the ramparts of Taif and tried to take the town. After a useless siege of twenty days, he preferred to give up all ideas of an attack in favour of other means, slower but more sure, and instead of invoking the wrath of the Divinity against the inhabitants, he said: 'O Allah! enlighten the people of Taif and inspire them with a desire to come to Thy Apostle of their own free will!' Despite the disappointment of his troops, he retook the road to Makkah, camping at Al-Ji'rana where all the prisoners were collected, as well as all the booty to be divided. When the Prophet arrived, a female captive, Ash-Shayma, of the Banu Sad, which was a fraction of the Hawazin, was struggling to escape from the brutality of the soldiery. On perceiving Mohammad, she cried out: 'O Prophet of Allah, I am thy foster-sister!'--'Prove it!'--'See the scar on my shoulder where thou didst bite me when I carried thee, a baby boy, on my back.' The Prophet recognised the cicatrice. Much moved, he shed tears, spread his mantle on the ground, and asked Ash-Shayma to sit down on it. 'According to thy wish,' he said, 'thou wilt find generous friendship by my side; or thou canst return to thy tribe with all the gifts I'll lavish on thee.'--'Send me back to my people in the desert, O Prophet! Such is my sole desire.' Mohammad set her free, after having loaded her with presents.