The people, in breathless expectation of the impending announcement, crowded round the pavilion as the Umpires issued from it. ‘Let them know,’ said Amru to his fellow, ‘that we are agreed.’ Abu Mûsa advanced, and with voice loud and clear,[545] said: ‘We are agreed upon a decision such as, we trust, will reconcile the people, and reunite the empire.’ ‘He speaketh true,’ said Amru: ‘step forth, O Abu Mûsa, and pronounce thy judgment.’[546] Then spoke Abu Mûsa: ‘Ye people! we have considered the matter well. We see no other course so likely to restore peace and concord amongst the people, as to depose Aly and Muâvia, both the one and the other. After that, ye shall choose a fit man in their room. This is my judgment.’ [Sidenote: Deposing Aly.]He stepped aside, and Amru advancing said: ‘Ye have heard the sentence of Abu Mûsa. He hath deposed his fellow; and so do I too depose him. But as for my Chief, Muâvia, him do I confirm. He is the heir of Othmân, and as avenger of his blood, the best entitled to succeed.’ [Sidenote: The people thunderstruck.] The assembly was thunderstruck. Even the Syrians had never dreamed of Muâvia achieving such a triumph; nor had it entered the minds of those on Aly’s side, that their Umpire could be overreached thus shamefully. ‘What could I do?’ cried Abu Mûsa, assailed on every hand; ‘he agreed with me, then swerved aside.’ ‘No fault of thine,’ said the son of Abbâs: ‘it was the fault of those who put thee in the place.’ Overwhelmed with reproaches, Abu Mûsa made his escape and fled to Mecca, where he thenceforward lived in obscurity.[547] [Sidenote: Muâvia saluted Caliph by the Syrians.]In the heat of his indignation, the commander of the Kûfa body-guard made an onset upon Amru, and was roughly handling him, when the people interposed to set him free. Amru returned forthwith to Damascus, where by acclamation Muâvia was saluted Caliph by the Syrians. [Sidenote: The two Caliphs curse each other in the daily service.] How the startling intelligence affected Aly, may be judged by the fact that to the prescribed daily service he added a petition cursing by their names, Muâvia, Amru, and several of their chief adherents. Muâvia was nothing loth to follow his example. And so the world was edified by the spectacle, in the cathedral temples of Islam, of the rival Commanders of the Faithful uttering maledictions in their daily prayers, the one against the other.[548] CHAPTER XLII. THE KHAREJITES, OR THEOCRATIC SEPARATISTS, DEFEATED AT NEHRWAN. A.H. XXXVII. A.D. 658. [Sidenote: Aly’s designs against Syria.] Aly, as the reader will suppose, was not content with heaping imprecations on his antagonist. He resolved on the immediate renewal of hostilities. But he had other work before him first in dealing with the fanatics nearer home.