divert the boy's attention from his present troubles, his mother would
tell him about her happy home in Palestine, where she and her little
sister, Lois, had watched their sheep on the green hillsides, and woven
chains of flowers to put about the neck of their pet lamb; of how they
grew up, and Lois married the Bedouin Musa, and had gone far away.

Thus far, Yusuf knew nothing of this connection of Nathan's family with
his Bedouin friends. It was yet to prove another link in the chain which
was binding him so closely to this godly family. His many occupations,
and the feeling which impelled him at every spare moment to seek for
some clue which would lead to Nathan's liberation, left him little time
for conversation with them for the present, except to see that their
wants were supplied.

Then, too, he was troubled about Amzi, and somewhat anxious about the
result of Mohammed's proclamations, which were now beginning to be
noised abroad. From holding meetings in caves and private houses, the
"prophet" had begun to preach on the streets, and from the top of the
little eminence Safa, near the foot of Abu Kubays.

Many of the people of Mecca held him up to ridicule, and treated his
declarations with derisive contempt. Among his strongest opponents were
his own kindred, the Koreish, of the line of Haschem and of the rival
line of Abd Schems. The head of the latter tribe, Abu Sofian, Mohammed's
uncle, was especially bitter. He was a formidable foe, as he lived in
the highlands, his castles being built on precipitous rocks, and manned
by a set of wild and savage Arabs.

Yet Mohammed went on, neither daunted by fear nor discouraged by
sarcasm. The number of his followers steadily increased; his first