With this imposing force, Aly had already commenced his march on Syria, when tidings reached him that the fanatics were committing horrid and cold-blooded outrages in the country round about their camp.[551] A messenger was sent to make inquiry; but he too was put to death by the insurgents. The tidings of their proceedings became more and more alarming, and the men of Kûfa demanded to be led against them; ‘for how,’ said they, ‘can we leave such outlaws unpunished and at large behind us, and our homes exposed to their unlicensed cruelties?’ Aly himself, seeing that this must be done, changed his course eastward, crossed the Tigris, and marched against the fanatics. When now near to Nehrwân, he sent a messenger forward, to demand that the murderers should be delivered up. ‘Surrender these to justice,’ he said, ‘and ye shall be left alone, until the Lord grant us victory in Syria, and then haply He shall have turned your hearts again toward us.’ They replied that ‘they were all equally responsible for what had passed, and that the blood of the ungodly heretics they had slain was lawful to them.’ A parley ensued, in which the Caliph through his captains expostulated with the misguided fanatics, and offered quarter to all who should come over to his army, or retire peaceably to their homes. [Sidenote: The fanatics at Nehrwân dispersed and slain.]Some obeyed the call and came over; 500 went off to a neighbouring Persian town, and many more dispersed in other directions to their homes at Kûfa or elsewhere. Eighteen hundred remained upon the field, martyrs to the theocratic creed. With the wild battle cry, _On to Paradise!_ they rushed upon the Kûfa lances, and were slain to a man. Aly’s loss was trifling.[552] [Sidenote: The Khârejites again appear in the field. A.H. XXXVII. A.D. 658.]