Cacâa is the great hero of Câdesîya whom tradition delights to honour. He was fearful lest Hâshim should not arrive in time. So, to keep up the spirits of the Moslems, he repeated the tactics of the previous day. During the night he led his thousand men back a little way on the Syrian road, and in the morning appeared as before, company after company, as if they had been fresh reinforcements. The last had just come in, when Hâshim himself appeared in sight with his 5,000. But there is a tendency to fiction throughout as respects Cacâa.
[274] The first thing, we are told, that gave him assurance was the sound of the Arabs vaingloriously reciting their genealogies, as they had done the night before. Then, towards morning, Cacâa was heard shouting—
We have slain a whole host, and more,
Singly, and in fours and fives,
(We were like black serpents in the manes of lions)
Until, as they fell, I called out lustily,
The Lord is my Lord! whiles I had to keep my guard all round.
Whereupon Sád knew that the attack was going on favourably.
[275] Another account is that, on the approach of the Moslems, Rustem shot an arrow, which transfixed the foot of Hilâl (the fortunate captor) to his stirrup; whereupon Hilâl rushed forward and despatched him. Gibbon’s version is very different from either.
[276] The Hindia (which answers to the Atick or Bâdacla) is described by Geary as flowing swiftly, sixty yards broad, and in the full season eight or nine feet deep, with banks from ten to twenty feet in height.