Kalb tribe, and thence crossed the desert to Suwa[1] which was also a spring held conjointly by the Kalb and some men of the Bahrâʾ. Here Khâlid killed Ḥurḳûs ibn-an-Nuʿmân al-Bahrâni of the Ḳuḍâʿah tribe and swept off all their possessions. When Khâlid wanted to cross the desert, he gave the camels all the water they could drink and then thrust into the camels' lips spears, which he left for them to drag,[2] lest they should ruminate and get thirsty again. The quantity of water he carried along, though big, was exhausted on the way. So Khâlid had to slay the camels one after the other and drink with his men the water from their bellies. Khâlid had a guide named Râfiʿ ibn-ʿUmair aṭ-Ṭâʾi whom the poet meant when he said:
"How wonderful has Râfiʿ been,
who succeeded in finding the way from Ḳurâḳir to Suwa,
to the water from which the coward who attempts to reach it returns before attaining it.
No human being before thee ever did that!"
When the Moslems arrived in Suwa they found Ḥurḳûṣ and a band of men drinking and singing. Ḥurḳûṣ himself was saying:
"Again give me to drink before abu-Bakr's army is on,
our death may be at hand while we are unaware."[3]
As the Moslems killed him, his blood flowed into the basin from which he had been drinking; and some report that his head, too, fell therein. It is claimed by others,[4] however, that the one who sang this verse was one of those of the banu-Taghlib whom Khalid had attacked with Rabîʿah ibn-Bujair.
