Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/289

260 days of inaction followed; after which ʿAlī sent three chiefs to demand that, for the good of the commonwealth, Muʿāwiya should tender his allegiance. A scene ensued of fruitless recrimination. Muʿāwiya demanded that the murderers of ʿOthmān should be brought to justice; while the demand was stigmatised as a mere cat’s-paw covering ambitious designs upon the Caliphate. This was resented as a base calumny by Muʿāwiya. "Begone, ye lying scoundrels!" he cried ; "the sword shall decide between us." So saying, he drove them from his presence. Finding all attempt at compromise vain, ʿAlī marshalled his army into eight separate columns, each under a Bedawi chieftain of note. As many separate columns were similarly formed on the Syrian side. Every day one of these columns, taking the field in turn, was drawn up against a column of the other army. Desultory fighting in this singular way was kept up throughout the month, there being sometimes as many as two engagements in a day. But the contest was hardly yet begun in earnest. On either side they feared to bring on a common battle, "lest the Muslims should be destroyed, root and branch, in the internecine struggle."

The new year opened on combatants, wearied by such indecisive strife and inclined to thoughts of peace, and so a truce was called, to last throughout the month. The interval was spent in deputations, but they proved as fruitless as those which had gone before. ʿAlī, under the influence of the heated Bedawīn around him, was hardly now disposed even to blame the attack on ʿOthmān. When pressed on this point by the Syrian delegates, he avoided a direct reply. "I will not say," was the evasive answer, "that he was wrongly attacked, nor will I say that the attack was justified." "Then," answered the Syrians, "we shall fight against thee, and against every one else who refuseth to say that ʿOthmān was not wrongfully put to death;" and with these words took their final leave. On his side, Muʿāwiya declared to the messengers of ʿAlī that nothing short of the punishment of the regicides would induce him to quit the field. "What?" exclaimed some one; "wouldest thou put ʿAmmār to death?" "And why not?" answered Muʿāwiya; "wherefore should the son of the bondwoman not suffer for having slain the