But Kutayba had by this time entirely lost his head, and turned a deaf ear to all advice. The Arabs, lashed to madness by his obstinacy, beset his palace with shouts of vengeance. Some set fire to his stables, and in the confusion that ensued another band broke into the council-hall and attacked their fallen chief. He received a wound from an arrow, and was straightway hacked to pieces with swords, A.H. 96 (714). Thus fell, at the age of forty-six, a man whose personality stands out in bold relief in the earlier annals of the most militant of creeds. It would be unjust to omit mention of Kutayba’s zeal in the propaganda of Islām. Narshakhi has much to tell us of his pious exertions in the town of Bokhārā. On each of his four expeditions thither he compelled the inhabitants to accept the faith of Mohammed, but as soon as his back was turned they reverted to idol-worship. In A.H. 94 Kutayba built, on the site of a fire-temple, a large mosque, where prayers were read every Friday; a reward of two direms was given to every attendant in order to assure the permanent conversion of the people. Kutayba quartered an Arab in every house, who played the dual part of spy and missionary. His character was an epitome of the qualities which made Islām a terror to mankind, and ultimately conspired to reduce it to impotence. [Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF BOKHĀRĀ] CHAPTER IX KUTAYBA’S SUCCESSORS On the death of Kutayba, Wakī`, who had been a ringleader in the revolt, took upon himself the direction of affairs in Khorāsān. After a lapse of nine months, however, a new governor arrived, in the person of Yezīd ibn Muhallab, and Wakī` was placed under arrest, while his partisans were subjected to punishment. According to the Persian translation of Tabari, Yezīd this year “began a series of expeditions beyond the frontiers of Khorāsān, to countries where Kutayba had not penetrated,”[141] but they are not mentioned in the Arabic original, nor are such undertakings consistent with the rest of Yezīd’s career. For his attention was turned to the subjection of the countries to the west of Khorāsān,[142] rather than to the extension of Mohammedan authority towards the Chinese frontier.