Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/235

 206 and by sea, but was killed at last while engaged in exploring a Grecian seaport. The island of Rhodes was occupied a few years later.

Three years after the fall of Cyprus, driven now from the harbours of Africa, and seriously threatened in the Levant, the Byzantines gathered a fleet of some 500 vessels, and defied the Arabs. Ibn abi Sarḥ was appointed to answer the challenge. He manned every available ship in the ports of Egypt and Africa; and his squadron, though inferior in weight and equipment to the Enemy's, was crowded with valiant warriors from the army. The Byzantine fleet came in sight near Alexandria. The wind lulled, and both sides lay for a while at anchor. The night was passed by the Muslims in recitation of the Ḳorʾān and prayer, while the Greeks kept up the clangour of their bells. In the morning, a fierce engagement took place. The Arab ships grappled with their adversaries, and a hand-to-hand encounter with sword and dagger ensued. The slaughter was great on both sides; but the Greeks, unable to withstand the wild onset of the Saracens, broke and dispersed. The Byzantine commander sailed away to Syracuse, where the people, infuriated at the defeat, despatched him in his bath.

This splendid victory notwithstanding, discontent against ʿOthmān now for the first time found free and dangerous expression among the leading Companions in the fleet. They murmured thus against the Caliph:—"ʿOthmān hath changed the ordinances of his predecessors, he hath made Admiral a man whom the Prophet would have put to death; and such like men also hath he put in chief command at Al-Kūfa, Al-Baṣra, and elsewhere." The clamour reaching the ears of Ibn abi Sarḥ, he declared that none of the malcontents should fight in his line of battle. Excluded thus, they were the more incensed. Spite of the threats of Ibn abi Sarḥ, the inflammatory language spread, and men began to speak openly and unadvisedly against ʿOthmān.

The clouds were louring, and the horizon of the Caliph darkened all around.