fatigues, and the progress of an epidemical disease, prevented
a solid establishment; and the Saracens, after a campaign of fifteen
months, retreated to the confines of Egypt, with the captives and the
wealth of their African expedition. The caliph's fifth was granted to
a favorite, on the nominal payment of five hundred thousand pieces of
gold; but the state was doubly injured by this fallacious transaction,
if each foot-soldier had shared one thousand, and each horseman three
thousand, pieces, in the real division of the plunder. The author of the
death of Gregory was expected to have claimed the most precious reward
of the victory: from his silence it might be presumed that he had fallen
in the battle, till the tears and exclamations of the praefect's daughter
at the sight of Zobeir revealed the valor and modesty of that gallant
soldier. The unfortunate virgin was offered, and almost rejected as a
slave, by her father's murderer, who coolly declared that his sword
was consecrated to the service of religion; and that he labored for a
recompense far above the charms of mortal beauty, or the riches of this
transitory life. A reward congenial to his temper was the honorable
commission of announcing to the caliph Othman the success of his arms.
The companions the chiefs, and the people, were assembled in the mosch
of Medina, to hear the interesting narrative of Zobeir; and as the
orator forgot nothing except the merit of his own counsels and actions,
the name of Abdallah was joined by the Arabians with the heroic names of
Caled and Amrou.

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.--Part VIII.

The Western conquests of the Saracens were suspended near twenty years,
till their dissensions were composed by the establishment of the house
of Ommiyah; and the caliph Moawiyah was invited by the cries of the
Africans themselves. The successors of Heraclius had been informed of
the tribute which they had been compelled to stipulate with the Arabs,
but instead of being moved to pity and relieve their distress, they
imposed, as an equivalent or a fine, a second tribute of a similar
amount. The ears of the Byzantine ministers were shut against the
complaints of their poverty and ruin: their despair was reduced to
prefer the dominion of a single master; and the extortions of the
patriarch of Carthage, who was invested with civil and military power,
provoked the sectaries, and even the Catholics of the Roman province, to
abjure the re