Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/259

 230 ʿOthmān was silent. Then calmly rising, he bade the citizens go back; and himself, with but faint hope of relief, turned to re-enter his dreary home.

The blockade had lasted several weeks, when a mounted messenger arrived with tidings that succour was on its way. This, coming to the insurgents' knowledge, caused them to redouble their efforts. Closing every approach, they allowed neither outlet nor ingress to a single soul. Water hardly obtainable even by stealth at night, the little garrison suffered the extremities of thirst. On the appeal of ʿOthmān, ʿAlī expostulated with the besiegers;—"they were treating the Caliph," he told them, "more cruelly than they would prisoners on the field of battle. Even infidels did not deny water to a thirsty enemy." They were deaf to his entreaty. Um Ḥabība, touched with pity, sought with ʿAlī's aid to carry water on her mule through the rebel ranks; but neither sex nor rank, nor having been the Prophet's wife, availed to prevent her being roughly handled. They cut her bridle with their swords, so that she was near falling to the ground, and drove her rudely back. The better part of the inhabitants were shocked at the violence and inhumanity of the rebels; but none had the courage to oppose them. Sick at heart, most kept to their houses; while others, alarmed, and seeking to avoid the cruel spectacle, quitted Medīna. It is hard to believe that, even in the defenceless state of the city, ʿAlī, Az-Zubeir, and Ṭalḥa, the great heroes of Islām, could not, if they wished, have raised effective opposition to the lawless work of the heartless regicides. We must hold them culpable, if not of collusion with the insurgents, at least of cold-blooded indifference to their Caliph's fate.