gazing wide-eyed upon the limitless desert under the blaze of sun or
below the velvet dark, with swift, half-conscious questionings uttering
the universal why and how [31] of childhood. Legend regards even this
early time as one of preparation for his mission, and there are stories
of the coming of two men clothed in white and shining garments, who
ripped open his body, took out his heart, and having purged it of all
unrighteousness, returned it, symbolically cleansing him of sin that he
might forward the work of God. It was an imaginative rightness that
decreed that Mahomet's most impressionable years should be spent in the
great desert, whose twin influences of fierceness and fatalism he felt
throughout his life, and which finally became the key-notes of his
worship of Allah.

Hailima, convinced that her foster-son was possessed by evil spirits,
resolved to return him to Abd al Muttalib, but as she journeyed through
Upper Mecca, the child wandered away and was lost for a time. Hailima
hurried, much agitated, to his grandfather, who immediately sent his
sons to search, and after a short time they returned with the boy,
unharmed and unfrightened by his adventure. The legend--it is quite a
late accretion--is interesting, as showing an acquaintance with, and a
parallelism to, the story of the losing of Jesus among the Passover
crowds, and the search for Him by His kindred. Mahomet was at last
lodged with his mother, who indignantly explained to Hailima the real
meaning of his malady, and spoke of his future glory as manifested to
her by the light that enfolded her before his birth. Not long after,
Amina decided to visit her [32] husband's tomb at Medina, and thither
Mahomet accompanied her, travelling through the rocky, desolate valleys
and hills that separate the two, with just his mother and a slave girl.