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And the Muhajerim had need of all the kindliness and help they could obtain, for the first six months in Medina were trying both to their health and endurance, so that many repented their venture and would have returned if the Ansar had not come forward with ministrations and gifts, and also if their chances of reaching Mecca alive had not been so precarious.
Even at that moment the Ansar soldiers might be riding within thirty paces of them, and Feversham strained his eyes backwards into the darkness and expected the glimmer of a white turban. Trench, however, never turned his head. He rode with his teeth set, looking forwards. Yet fear was no less strong in him than in Feversham.
The wicked Osman Azrak had been struck by a bullet, and more than 200 Ansar had fallen, including several Emirs. Moreover, a long train of wounded was seen to start during the afternoon for the south. It is doubtful, however, whether Bishara would have retreated, if he had not feared being cut off.
I was informed, that of the original Arab residents, to whom the Mohammedan writers apply the name of El Ansar, and who at Mohammed's entrance were principally composed of the tribes of Ows and Khezredj, only about ten families remain who can prove their descent by pedigrees, or well-ascertained traditions: they are poor people, and live as peasants in the suburbs and gardens.
Thus the seed was sown of a corporate religious life, the embryo from which the Arabian military organisation, its polity, even its social system, were to spring. In spite of the increasing numbers of the Ansar, there still remained a party in Medina, "the Disaffected," who had not as yet accepted the Prophet or his creed.
He bewailed the lack of faith in God which had allowed even the meanest of the Ansar to abandon the Jehad against the infidel, and he condemned the lack of piety which disgraced the age.
Many of his erstwhile followers, especially the tribes of Bedouins, had refused him their help upon this adventure, and, immediate danger being past, he returned to rend them in the fury of his eloquence. His success had given him the right to chastise; even the Ansar were not exempt from his wrath. Three who remained behind were proscribed, and compelled to fulfil fifty days of penance.
Istar, another Sumerian deity, became softened in Semitic speech to Athtar, the moon-goddess of Southern Arabia; and the connection of this moon- and cow-goddess with the similar Hathor of Egypt seems very probable. Ansar was another Sumerian god, meaning 'the sky, or the spirit world of the sky; and this might have passed into Anhar, the sky-god, known both in Upper and Lower Egypt.
How should they hope to prevail against 'the expected Mahdi' and the conquering Ansar who had destroyed Hicks? They were mad; yet they should die; not one should escape. The delay in the advance offered ample opportunity. A great force of Arabs was concentrated.
The news spread quick as a spark through the town; already crowds of men and women and children flocked to this rare and pleasant spectacle. In front of the palm trees an open space stretched to the gateway of the Emir's house; behind them a slope of sand descended flat and bare to the river. Harry Feversham was standing under the trees, guarded by four of the Ansar soldiery.
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