anger." "What have I done, that he should hate me?" And Bebut laid him
dead at his feet.

As a reward for his crime, Abbas sent him the royal vest, called the
calaata, and immediately created him his Etimadoulet, or Prime Minister.

Paternal love, however, presently resumed its power. Remorse now
produced the same effect upon the king, as terror had done before. His
nights seemed endless. The bleeding shade of his son incessantly
appeared before him, banishing the peace and slumber to which it had
been sacrificed. Shrouded in the garb of mourning, the monarch of Persia
dismissed all pleasure from his court; and, during the rest of his life,
could not be known by his attire from the meanest of his subjects.

One day he sent for Bebut, who found him standing on the steps of his
throne, entirely clothed in scarlet, the red turban of twelve folds
around his head,--in short, in the garb assumed by the kings of Persia
when preparing to pronounce the decree of death. Bebut shuddered. "It is
written," said the Sehah, "that what the king wills cannot be wrong.
Give me to-day the same proof of thy obedience which thou didst once
before. Bebut, thou hast a son--bring me his head!" Bebut attempted to
speak. "Bebut, Etimadoulet, Khan of Schamachia--is, then, thy ambition
satiated, that thou hesitatest to satisfy my commands? Obey! Thy life
depends on it!"

Bebut returned with the head of his only child. "Well," said the father
of Mirza, with a horrid smile, "How dost feel?"--"Let these tears tell
you how," answered the unhappy Khan: "I have killed with my own hand the
being I loved best on earth. You can ask nothing beyond. This day, for
the first time, I have cursed ambition, which could subject me to a