Forty days after Musa’s arrival at Damascus Al-Walid died, and Suleyman ascended the throne. The latter, notorious for the ferocity of his disposition and the vulgarity and gluttony of his tastes, lost no time in imposing upon Musa the full weight of his displeasure. The first judicial act of his administration was the arraignment of the veteran general, now more than eighty years of age. The evidence of corruption, extortion, and tyranny, to which Musa could make but a feeble defence, having been presented, he was found guilty, sentenced to be stripped of his property, and required to pay a fine of two hundred thousand pieces of gold. In addition to this severe penalty, he was also forced to remain chained to a post under a blazing sun, as a punishment for having publicly reproached the Khalif for his ingratitude. Through the intercession of friends he was released after many hours of torture, and permitted to retire from the court, accompanied by a single faithful slave. His remaining years were passed in poverty; dependent upon alms, he begged his bread from the Bedouin tribes, putting aside every dirhem he could obtain to be applied to the payment of his fine, until he died in abject wretchedness at Wada-al-Kora, a remote settlement of Arabia. Such was the miserable end of one of the greatest military leaders Islam ever produced. His courage was dauntless, his sagacity almost amounted to inspiration, his resources were inexhaustible. His zeal, which bordered upon fanaticism, assured him of the favor of Allah, and infused into his troops the most unbounded confidence in his genius. The bursts of his oratory rivalled in eloquence and enthusiasm the rhetorical efforts of the greatest preachers of the age. He observed the ceremonial of his faith with scrupulous diligence. His prudence and the accuracy of his perceptions were proverbial. In all his experience, where he held command in person, no enemy ever prevailed over him. His suspicious nature and intuitive knowledge of mankind made him more than a match for statesmen whose lives had been passed in the atmosphere of courts. Increasing his wealth by the most questionable methods, he excluded his companions from all participation in his prosperity, and under his incessant peculation the royal revenues were sensibly diminished, an offence which more than all others insured his ruin. Thus, in spite of his extraordinary talents, his avarice--whose gratification no bond of friendship, no obligation of loyalty, no precept of religion, and no fear of punishment could restrain--proved his destruction, and the famous commander who had acquired kingdoms, and accumulated wealth which excited the envy of princes, died poor and despised; an outcast in the centre of a barren and lonely region far from the scenes of his glory, and an object of curiosity and compassion to the barbarian shepherds and brigands of the Desert. History is silent as to the fate