lbec, of Cufa and Bassora, were taken and pillaged; Bagdad
was filled with consternation; and the caliph trembled behind the veils
of his palace. In a daring inroad beyond the Tigris, Abu Taher advanced
to the gates of the capital with no more than five hundred horse. By
the special order of Moctader, the bridges had been broken down, and the
person or head of the rebel was expected every hour by the commander of
the faithful. His lieutenant, from a motive of fear or pity, apprised
Abu Taher of his danger, and recommended a speedy escape. "Your master,"
said the intrepid Carmathian to the messenger, "is at the head of thirty
thousand soldiers: three such men as these are wanting in his host:" at
the same instant, turning to three of his companions, he commanded the
first to plunge a dagger into his breast, the second to leap into the
Tigris, and the third to cast himself headlong down a precipice. They
obeyed without a murmur.

"Relate," continued the imam, "what you have seen: before the evening
your general shall be chained among my dogs." Before the evening, the
camp was surprised, and the menace was executed. The rapine of the
Carmathians was sanctified by their aversion to the worship of Mecca:
they robbed a caravan of pilgrims, and twenty thousand devout Moslems
were abandoned on the burning sands to a death of hunger and thirst.
Another year they suffered the pilgrims to proceed without interruption;
but, in the festival of devotion, Abu Taher stormed the holy city, and
trampled on the most venerable relics of the Mahometan faith. Thirty
thousand citizens and strangers were put to the sword; the sacred
precincts were polluted by the burial of three thousand dead bodies; the
well of Zemzem overflowed with blood; the golden spout was forced
from its place; the veil of the Caaba was divided among these impious
sectaries; and the black stone, the first monument of the nation, was
borne away in triumph to their capital. After this deed of sacrilege
and cruelty, they continued to infest the confines of Irak, Syria, and
Egypt: but the vital principle of enthusiasm had withered at the root.
Their scruples, or their avarice, again opened the pilgrimage of Mecca,
and restored the black stone of the Caaba; and it is needless to inquire
into what factions they were broken, or by whose swords they were
finally extirpated. The sect of the Carmathians may be considered as
the second visible cause of the decline and fall of the e