They were now on the Syrian side of the desert, about a hundred miles to the east of Damascus. Early next morning, Khâlid fell on the astonished tribes in the neighbourhood, scattering terror all around, and securing submission either willingly or by the sword. Tadmor, after a slight resistance, yielded. Then fetching a circuit, he skirted the Haurân within sight of Damascus, and emerged at Adzraât. Having achieved this marvellous journey in the course of a few weeks, and reopened communications with the south, he sent tidings to Abu Bekr of his safety, with the Fifth of the spoil he had taken by the way. He was now close to the combined army of the Moslems, which still lay inactive on the Yermûk; and he effected a junction with them in the month of June, or perhaps July.[164] [Sidenote: The two armies compared.] Fresh reinforcements from the Emperor, under the renowned Armenian general Bahân (the same who discomfited the other Khâlid), had just arrived and raised the flagging spirit of the Romans. Their army, we are told, numbered 240,000 men, of whom a great body are stigmatised as felon-prisoners released for the occasion, and others are said (like those of the Persians) to have been chained together that they might not run away, or in token that they were bound to die. The idea, no doubt, is fanciful and cast in the contemptuous style of Mussulman tradition. But so much we may readily accept, that the army with which Heraclius sought to stay the tide of Saracen invasion, must needs have been very large.[165] We may also believe that though devoid of union, loyalty, and valour, it was well appointed, and elated by its achievements in the Persian war, of which many veterans were still present in the ranks. In discipline and combined movement, and in the weight and style of his equipment, the Roman, no doubt, surpassed the Arab. But the armament of the Roman did not so greatly excel as to give him a material advantage. It had no analogy, for example, with the superiority which in these days crushes the barbarian before the sanguinary appliances of modern art and science. It is strange to reflect how a single Gatling might have changed the day and driven Islam back to wither and die in the land of its birth. On the other hand, the Bedouin horse excelled in celerity and dash. Their charge, if light, was galling, and so rapidly delivered that, before the surprise was recovered from, the enemy might be out of sight. The Romans, it is true, had themselves Bedouin auxiliaries, as numerous, perhaps, as the whole Moslem army. But the spirit of the two was widely different. The fealty of the Syrian Arab was lax and loose. Christian in name, the yoke of his faith sat (as it still sits) lightly on him. Indeed, throughout the empire, Christianity was eaten up of strife and rancour. With Bahân came a troop of monks and bishops, who, bearing banners, waving aloft their golden crosses, and shouting that the faith was