The ardour of Mothanna was near to causing a disaster. When Hormuz’ message reached Medâin, the King despatched Cârin, another prince of the first rank, to reinforce him. Midway he was met by remnants of the defeated army, which, with the two princes, were retreating to Medâin.[111] Here their flight was stayed, and they rallied at Madzâr, on the southern bank of the great canal, or branch of the Tigris which runs athwart the peninsula to the Euphrates. Cârin, thus strengthened, resolved on giving battle to Mothanna, who in his adventurous pursuit had reached thus far. Khâlid, apprised of the check, hastened to relieve his lieutenant, and arrived just in time. The field was fiercely contested; Cârin and both princes lost their lives, and a prodigious number of the enemy was either slain or drowned; the remainder escaped in boats.[112] The deep channel stopped farther advance; but the spoil of the enemy’s camp again was very great. Khâlid, encamped on the bank of the canal, scoured the country on either hand, killing all the people fit for war, and taking their women captive. But the Fellaheen, or unwarlike peasants, he left unharmed. The court was now thoroughly aroused. Arab invaders, they began to say, were best met by Arabs who knew their tactics; and so the king raised a great levy of the Beni Bekr and other loyal clans, under a famous warrior of their own. [Sidenote: Battle of Walaja. Safar, A.H. XII. April, A.D. 633.]He also summoned Bahmân, a veteran general, from the provinces, to command the imperial troops. The combined army, in imposing force, encamped at Walaja, on the farther side of the Euphrates. Leaving a detachment to guard his conquests in the lower delta, Khâlid advanced with the remainder of his army to meet the enemy. The battle was long and obstinate, but was won by the tactics of the Moslem leader, who, when the enemy were exhausted, surprised them by two ambuscades in their rear. The discomfiture was complete. The Persians fled, and with them the Bedouins, but not until several of them had been taken prisoner. Flushed with success and delighted with the bounty spread around, Khâlid called his troops together and addressed them in these stirring words: [Sidenote: Khâlid’s oration on gaining the victory.]‘Ye see the riches of the land. Its paths drop fatness and plenty, so that food is scattered about, even as stones are in Arabia. Were it but as a provision for this present life, and no holy war to wage, it were worth our while to fight for these fair fields and banish care and penury for ever.’[113] Khâlid here struck a chord at which every Bedouin heart leapt for joy. Now, also, the cunning device of the Corân, with respect to the other sex, began to tell. Persian ladies, both maids and matrons, ‘taken captive by the right hand,’ were forthwith, without stint of number, lawful to the conquerors’ embrace; and, in the enjoyment of this privilege, they were nothing loth to execute upon the heathen ‘the