As they abode thus on the fourth day, behold, a company of folk
giving their beasts the rein and crying aloud and saying, "Quick!
Quick! Haste to our rescue, O King!" Therewithal the king's
chamberlains and officers accosted them and said to them, "What
is behind you and what hath befallen you?" Quoth they, "Bring us
before the king." [So they carried them to Ins ben Cais;] and
when they saw him, they said to him, "O king, except thou succour
us, we are dead men; for that we are a folk of the Benou
Sheiban,[FN#67] who have taken up our abode in the parts of
Bassora, and Hudheifeh the Arab[FN#68] hath come down on us with
his horses and his men and hath slain our horsemen and carried
off our women and children; nor was one saved of the tribe but he
who fled; wherefore we crave help [first] by God the Most High,
then by thy life."

When the king heard their speech, he bade the crier make
proclamation in the thoroughfares of the city that the troops
should prepare [for the march] and that the horsemen should mount
and the footmen come forth; nor was it but the twinkling of the
eye ere the drums beat and the trumpets sounded; and scarce was
the forenoon of the day passed when the city was blocked with
horse and foot. So the king passed them in review and behold,
they were four-and-twenty thousand in number, horsemen and
footmen. He bade them go forth to the enemy and gave the
commandment over them to Said ibn el Wakidi, a doughty cavalier
and a valiant man of war. So the horsemen set out and fared on
along the bank of the Tigris.

El Abbas looked at them and saw the ensigns displayed and the
standards loosed and heard the drums beating; so he bade his