LIFE OF MOHAMMED. 237 



bourhood, where he obtained the necessary refresh^ 

 ments of water and repose. The day was totally 

 lost. The Moslems numbered seventy martyrs. At 

 their head was the brave Hamza, who was secretly 

 stabbed to the heart with a lance by a slave, in the 

 commencement of the action, while fighting among 

 the foremost. Abu Beker, Omar, and Othman were 

 wounded. The assurance of paradise was the re- 

 ward of the fallen ; while seventy-two prayers ob- 

 tained for Hamza a place among the inhabitants of 

 the seventh heaven, with the glorious title of the 

 Lion of God. 



The infidels remained masters of the field ; but 

 the orderly retreat of the Moslems deterred them 

 from attempting pursuit, or taking advantage of 

 their success. They stripped the slain, committing on 

 their senseless trunks the most revolting excesses of 

 vengeance. Their noses and ears were cut off, and 

 worn in triumph by the victors, as necklaces, brace- 

 lets, and belts. Henda, recovered from her panic, 

 with a barbarity rare even among savages, tore out 

 the entrails of Hamza, gnawed his liver with her 

 teeth, and swallowed part of the bloody morsel. 

 Abu Sofian cut slices off his cheeks, and hoisted 

 them on the end of a spear ; shouting praises to Ho- 

 bal, their popular deity, and his victorious religion. 

 This brutal exultation might satiate their fury, but 

 it lost them the best fruits of the action. Instead 

 of glutting their revenge by a useless cruelty, the 

 Koreish might have followed up their success by 

 marching on Medina, then in a state of weakness 

 and mutiny, owing to a quarrel with the Jews. The 

 pillage of that capital, the strongest motive in Ara- 

 bian warfare, would have supplied them with fresh 

 courage ; a few hours might have put an end to the 

 rising empire of the apostle and the Koran, and 

 again restored to the Kaaba the allegiance of its 

 revolted worshippers. 



This disaster threatened to annihilate the Prophet's 



