of Christianity."

"Then," said Manasseh, "if you will let me, I shall offer prayers above
his grave."

"No, Manasseh," said Kedar decidedly, "these people would resent it in
a stranger. I shall do it; they will grant me the privilege as the right
of a son."

"And rightly," exclaimed Manasseh, surprised and pleased at the
staunchness with which his cousin took his new stand.

On the following day the funeral wound slowly up the defile to the place
of the lonely grave. And there Kedar prayed simply and earnestly, a
prayer in which the spiritual enlightenment of the sorrowful people
about him was the chief theme. They did not understand all its meaning,
but they were impressed by the solemnity and sincerity of the young
Arab's manner.

Then the little heap of sand was raised, and four stone slabs were
placed, according to Bedouin custom, upon the grave.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE DEATH OF MOHAMMED.

"Nothing can we call our own but death"--_Shakespeare._

While Musa thus lay dying in the tents of Nejd, the cold hand of death
was fast closing upon another in the land of Arabia. Day by day the
germs of disease pulsed stronger and stronger through the veins of
Mohammed. Monarch of Arabia, originator of a creed which was eventually
to push itself throughout Egypt, India, Afghanistan, Persia, and even to
the wild steppes of Siberia, he must now die. He viewed the end with
firmness, and it has been a matter of controversy as to whether in these
later days he still had the hallucination of being a prophet.

Too feeble to walk to the mosque, he lay, tended by his wives, in the
tent of Ayesha, his favorite. Not many days before his death he asked
that he might be carried to the mosque. Willing arms bore him thither,
and placed him in the pulpit, from whence he could look down upon the
city, and away to the palm-groves of Kuba. Then, turning his face
towards the holy city, Mecca, he addressed the crowds of waiting people
below.

"If there be any man," said he, "whom I have unjustly scourged, I submit
my own back to the lash of retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation
of any Mussulman?--let him proclaim my faults in the face of the
congregation. Has anyone been despoiled of his goods?--the little that I
possess shall compensate the principal and the interest of the debt."

He then liberated his slaves, gave directions as to the order of his
funeral, and appointed Abu Beker to supply his place in offering public