angier, and the other Grand Vizier to the Sultan at Morocco. Thus in a
land where there is one noble only, the Sultan himself, where ascent and
descent are as free as in a republic, though the ways of both are
mired with crime and corruption, Mohammed was come as from the highest
nobility. Nevertheless, he renounced his rank and the hope of wealth
that went along with it at the call of duty and the cry of misery.

He parted from his uncles, abandoned his judgeship, and went out into
the plains. The poor and outcast and down-trodden among the people, the
shamed, the disgraced, and the neglected left the towns and followed
him. He established a sect. They were to be despisers of riches and
lovers of poverty. No man among them was to have more than another. They
were never to buy or sell among themselves, but every one was to give
what he had to him that wanted it. They were to avoid swearing, yet
whatever they said was to be firmer than an oath. They were to be
ministers of peace, and if any man did them violence they were never to
resist him. Nevertheless they were not to lack for courage, but to laugh
to scorn the enemies that tormented them, and smile in their pains and
shed no tear. And as for death, if it was for their glory they were to
esteem it more than life, because their bodies only were corruptible,
but their souls were immortal, and would mount upwards when released
from the bondage of the flesh. Not dissenters from the Koran, but
stricter conformers to it; not Nazarenes and not Jews, yet followers of
Jesus in their customs and of Moses in their doctrines.

And Moors and Berbers, Arabs and Negroes, Muslimeen and Jews, heard the
cry of Mohammed of Mequinez, and he received them all. From the streets,
from the market-places, from the doors of the prisons, from the service
of hard masters, and from the ragged army itself, they arose in hundreds
and trooped after him. They needed no badge but the badge of poverty,
and no voice of pleading but the voice of misery. Most of them brought
nothing with them in their hands, and some brought little on their backs
save the stripes of their tormentors. A few had flocks and herds, which
they drove before them. A few had tents, which they shared with their
fellows; and a few had guns, with which they shot the wild boar for
their food and the hyena for their safety. Thus, possessing little and
desiring nothing, having neither houses nor lands, and only considering
themselves