Page 462

462 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES I 
of confinement and thereafter carried him with him on his expeditions. 
 Late in the same year he began to make preparations for a decisive attack
on Damascus and had actually set out when, early in 1146, an Armenian plot
to restore Edessa to Joscelin changed his plans. Probably moved by suspicions
of an understanding between Joscelin and his former ally, the Artukid Timurtash,
he turned against the latter, seized Tall ash-Shaikh, and after further operations
moved southwards to reduce another ally of the Franks, the cuqailid Arab
prince of Dausar, or Qa1~at Ja~bar, at the eastward bend of the Euphrates.
Here, on the night of September 14, 1146, he was assassinated by one of his
slaves. 
 The first reactions of the troops on the report of Zengi's death showed
that his fears of a Selchflkid revolution in Mosul had not been without foundation.
An eye-witness account describes their demonstrations against Zengi's officers
and vizir in favor of the SeichUkid malik Alp Arsian. But before he could
seize the opportunity, ~Ali KUchUk, who had been left in command at Mosul,
in agreement with the vizir Jamal-ad-DIn, summoned Zengi's eldest son, Saif-ad-Din
Ghazl, from his fief at Shahrazur and installed him. On his advance towards
the city Alp Arslan was seized, imprisoned, and never seen again. While the
issue at Mosul was still in doubt the governors of Hamah and Aleppo, al-Yaghislyani
and Sevar, led back the Syrian contingents accompanied by Zengi's second
son Nür-ad-DIn Malimud, and set him up in his father's place at Aleppo.
The era of Moslem expansion which had begun under Zengi was to continue with
almost unabated success under Nür-ad-DIn.