called to the Book, and we cannot decline it.’ At last, in open mutiny, they threatened the unfortunate Caliph, that, unless he agreed, they would all desert him, drive him over to the enemy, or serve him as they had served Othmân. Seeing that further opposition would be futile, Aly said: ‘Stay wild and treasonable words. Obey and fight. But if ye will rebel, do as ye list.’ ‘We will not fight,’ they cried; ‘recall Ashtar from the field.’ Ashtar, thus summoned, at the first refused. ‘We are gaining a great victory,’ he said, ‘I will not come;’ and he turned to fight again. But the tumult increased, and Aly sent a second time to say: ‘Of what avail is victory when treason rageth? Wouldst thou have the Caliph murdered, or delivered over to the enemy?’ Ashtar, on hearing this, unwillingly returned, and a fierce altercation ensued between him and the angry soldiery. ‘Ye were fighting,’ he said, ‘but yesterday for the Lord, and the choicest among you lost their lives. What is it but that ye now acknowledge yourselves in the wrong, and the Martyrs gone to hell?’ ‘Nay,’ they answered; ‘it is not so. Yesterday we fought for the Lord; to-day, also for the Lord, we stay the fight.’ On this, Ashtar upbraided them as ‘traitors, cowards, hypocrites, and villains.’ In return, they reviled him, and struck his charger with their whips. Aly interposed. The tumult was stayed. And Asháth, chief of the Beni Kinda, was sent to ask Muâvia ‘what his precise meaning in raising the Corân aloft might be.’ ‘It is this,’ he sent answer back, ‘that we should return, both you and we, to the will of the Lord, as set forth in the Book. Each side shall name an Umpire, and the verdict shall be binding.’ Aly’s army shouted assent. The unfortunate Caliph was forced to the still deeper humiliation of appointing as his arbiter a person who had deserted him. The soldiery cried out for Abu Mûsa, the temporising Governor of Kûfa who had been deposed for want of active loyalty. ‘This man,’ answered Aly, ‘did but lately leave us and flee; and not till after several months I pardoned him. Neither hath he now been fighting with us. Here is a worthy representative, the son of Abbâs, the Prophet’s uncle; choose him as your Umpire.’ ‘As well name thyself,’ they answered rudely. ‘Then take Ashtar.’ ‘What!’ said the Bedouin chiefs in the same rough imperious strain, ‘the man that hath set the world on fire! None for us but Abu Mûsa.’ It was a bitter choice for Aly, but he had no alternative. The Syrian arbiter was Amru, for whose deep and crafty ways Abu Mûsa was no match.[537] He presented himself in the Caliph’s camp, and the agreement was put in writing. [Sidenote: Deed of arbitration, 13 Safar, A.H. XXXVII. July 31, A.D. 665.] As dictated from Aly’s side, it ran thus: ‘_In the name of the Lord Most Merciful!_ This is what hath been agreed upon between the Commander of the Faithful, and ----’ ‘Stay!’ cried Amru (like the Coreish to the Prophet at Hodeibia); ‘Aly