Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/413

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 391 God alone. All things, both in heaven and earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My brother, my father, my mother, were better than me ; and every Musulman has an example in the prophet." He pressed his friends to consult their safety by a timely fliirht : they unanimously refused to desert or survive their beloved master ; and their courage was fortified by a fervent prayer and the assurance of paradise. On the morning of the fatal day, he mounted on horseback, with his sword in one hand and the Koran in the other ; his generous band of martyrs consisted only of thirty-two horse and forty foot ; but their flanks and rear were secured by the tent-i-opes, and by a deep trench which they had filled with lighted faggots, accord- ing to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance ; and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty fol- lowers, to claim the partnership of inevitable death. In every close onset or single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was invincible ; but the surrounding multitudes galled them from a distance with a cloud of arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain : a truce was allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer ; and the battle at length expired by the death of the last of the companions of Hosein. Alone, w^eary and wounded, he seated himself at the door of his tent. As he tasted a drop of water, he was pierced in the mouth with a dart ; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths, were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven, they were full of blood, and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and the dead. In a transpoi-t of despair his sister issued from the tent, and adjured the general of the Cufians that he would not suffer Hosein to be murdered before his eyes : a tear trickled down his venerable beard ; and the boldest of his soldiers fell back on every side as the dying hero threw himself among them. The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the faithful, reproached their cowardice ; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain with three and thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they had trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of Cufa, and the iiihuman Obeidollah struck him on the mouth with a cane: "Alas!'" exclaimed an aged Musulman, "on these lips have I seen the lij)s of the apostle of God ! " In a distant age and climate the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader.^'"^ On the annual festival i»6 1 have abridged the interesting narrative of Ockley (torn. ii. p. 170-231). It is long and minute ; but the pathetic, almost always, consists in the detail of little circumstances.