Abbas was one day musing, with some uneasiness, on the valour and
popular virtues of his son, when the young prince suddenly appeared. He
threw himself at his father's feet. He presented him a note which he had
just received, and in which, without discovering their names, the nobles
of the kingdom declared their weariness of his tyranny. They proposed to
the youth to ascend the throne, and undertook to clear his way to it.
Safi Mirza, indignant at a project which tended to turn him into a
parricide, declared all to the Sebah, and placed himself entirely at his
disposal. Abbas embraced him, covered him with caresses, and felt his
affection for him increase; but, from that moment, his fears redoubled.
His anxiety even prevented him from sleeping. In order to get at the
conspirators, he caused numbers of really innocent persons to die in
tortures; and, feeling that every execution rendered him still more
odious, he feared that his son would be again solicited, and would not
again have virtue to resist.

This state of terror and suspicion becoming insupportable to him, he
resolved to rid himself of it at any cost. A slave was ordered to murder
the prince. He refused to obey, and presented his own head. "Have I,
then, none but ingrates and traitors about me, to eat my bread and
salt?" cried Abbas,--"I swear by my sabre and by the Koran, that, to him
who will remove Safi Mirza, my generosity and gratitude shall he
boundless." Bebut the Ambitious advanced, and said,--"It is written,
that what the king wills cannot be wrong. To me thy will is sacred--it
shall be obeyed." He went immediately to seek the prince. He met him
coming out of the bath, accompanied by a single akta or valet. He drew
his sabre, and presenting the royal mandate,--"Safi Mirza," said he,
"submit! Thy father wills thy death!"--"My father wills my death!"
exclaimed the unfortunate prince, with a tone "more in sorrow than in