veil. Just then the cry was raised, ‘To the Treasury!’ and suddenly all departed.[490] [Sidenote: Burial of Othmân.] As soon as they had left, the palace gate was barred, and thus for three days the dead bodies of Othmân, Moghîra, and the slave, lay in silence within. Then Zobeir ibn Motím, and Hakîm ibn Hizâm (Khadîja’s nephew), chief men of the Coreish, obtained leave of Aly to bury the Caliph’s body.[491] In the dusk of evening, the funeral procession, including Zobeir, Hasan son of Aly, and the kinsmen of Othmân, wended their way to the burying-ground of Backî, outside the city. Death had not softened the rebels’ hearts, and they pelted the bier with stones. Not in the graveyard itself, but in a field adjoining, the body, with a hurried service, was committed to the dust. In after years the field was added by Merwân to the main burying-ground--a spot consecrated by the remains of the heroes of Ohod, and many names famous in the early days of Islam; and there the Beni Omeyya long buried their dead around the grave of their murdered kinsman.[492] [Sidenote: His character.] Thus, at the age of eighty-two, died Othmân, after a reign of twelve years. The misfortunes amongst which he sank bring out so sharply the failings of his character that further delineation is hardly needed. Narrow, weak, and vacillating, he had yet a kindly nature which might have made him, in less troublous times, a favourite of the people. Such, indeed, for a season he was at the beginning of his Caliphate. But afterwards he fell on evil days. The struggle between the Coreish and the rest of the Arabs was hurrying on the nation to an internecine war. The only possible safety was for the class still dominant to have opposed a strong and united front to their adversaries. By his vacillation, selfishness, and nepotism, Othmân broke up into embittered factions the aristocracy of Mecca, and threw this last chance away. CHAPTER XXXV. THE ELECTION OF ALY. End of A.H. XXXV. June, A.D. 656. [Sidenote: Revulsion of feeling.] On the Caliph’s death, his kinsfolk, and such as had taken an active part in his defence, retired from the scene. The city was horror-struck. They had hardly anticipated, and could now with difficulty realise, the tragical end. Many who had favoured, and some who had even joined, the rebels, started back, now that the deed was done. The nearer relatives of the murdered Caliph fled to Mecca and elsewhere, with vows of vengeance. A citizen of Medîna, wrapping carefully up the severed fingers of Nâila in the blood-stained shirt of Othmân--meet symbols of revenge--carried them off to Damascus and laid them at Muâvia’s feet. [Sidenote: Aly elected Caliph, 24 Dzul Hijj, A.H. XXXV. 23 June, A.D. 656.]