The Mussulman horse now scoured the country, and every day brought in bands of prisoners. Aware that after their crushing defeat his people were incapable of resistance, Mojâa bethought him of a stratagem. He represented them as holding their forts and fastnesses in force throughout the country, and so persuaded Khâlid to offer them their lives if they at once capitulated. Meanwhile, by his secret suggestion, the battlements were lined by every available person, even by the old men and women in armed disguise; and Khâlid’s messengers returned with the answer that they would fight to the last. The army was wearied with the hard struggle, and most of them anxious, after the long campaign, to return to their homes; and so Khâlid concluded a truce, on terms more favourable than they would have obtained but for Mojâa’s artifice. When it came to light, Khâlid reproached him for it; but in the end excused him on the pleaded ground of patriotism, and stood by the treaty. No sooner was it concluded, than he received a despatch of unwonted severity from Abu Bekr, who, to strike terror into other apostate tribes, commanded that not a single adult male of the ungodly and rebellious race should be spared. Fortunately the truce forbade the bloody edict. The Beni Hanîfa, like other prostrate tribes, were received back into the bosom of Islam, and a portion only of their number were retained in captivity.[59] [Sidenote: Deputation of Beni Hanîfa to the Caliph.] When the campaign was ended, Khâlid sent a deputation of the chief survivors to Abu Bekr, who received them courteously. ‘Out upon you!’ said he; ‘how is it that this impostor led you all astray?’ ‘O Caliph!’ they answered, ‘thou hast heard it all; he was one whom the Lord blessed not, nor yet his people;’ and they repeated to him some of the things he used to say. ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Abu Bekr, ‘Beshrew you! What kind of words are these? There is neither sense in them for good nor yet for evil, to have beguiled you thus, but a kind of strange fatuity.’ So he dismissed them to their homes.[60] [Sidenote: Many ‘Companions’ among the slain. Zeid, brother of Omar.] Among the killed we meet not a few names familiar to us in the annals of the Prophet’s life. The carnage amongst the _Readers_--those who had the Corân by heart--was so great, as to suggest to Omar the first design of collecting the sacred text, ‘lest any part should be lost therefrom.’ At the death of his favourite brother Zeid, who had shared with him the dangers of the first battles of Islam, Omar was inconsolable. ‘Thou art returned home,’ he said to his son Abdallah, ‘safe and sound; and Zeid is dead. Wherefore wast not thou slain before him? I wish not to see thy face.’ ‘Father!’ answered Abdallah, ‘he asked for martyrdom, and the Lord granted it. I strove after the same, but it was not given unto me.’ Such was the spirit of these Moslem warriors. [Sidenote: Khâlid marries Mojâa’s daughter.]