About the time that Abu Obeidah's messengers
reached Medina, there also arrived a considerable number of men out of
the several tribes of the Arabs, to proffer their service to the Caliph.
Omar ordered seventy camels to help their foot, and despatched them into
Syria, with a letter to Abu Obeidah, in which he acquainted him "that he
was variously affected, according to the different success they had met,
but charged them by no means to raise the siege of the castle, for that
would make them look little, and encourage their enemies to fall upon
them on all sides. Wherefore," adds he, "continue besieging it till God
shall determine the event, and forage with your horse round about the
country."
Among those fresh supplies which Omar had just sent to the Saracen camp,
there was a very remarkable man, whose name was Dames, of a gigantic
size, and an admirable soldier. When he had been in the camp forty-seven
days, and all the force and cunning of the Saracens availed nothing
toward taking the castle, he desired Abu Obeidah to let him have the
command of thirty men, and he would try his best against it.
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