that they remained together 'until [both] were stolen.'

It will be seen that Subh-i-Ezel takes credit (1) for carrying out
the Bab's last wishes, and (2) leaving the bodies as they were. To
remove the relics to another place was tantamount to stealing. It was
Baha-'ullah who ordered this removal for a good reason, viz., that the
cemetery, in which the niche containing the coffin was, seemed so
ruinous as to be unsafe.

There is, however, another version of Subh-i-Ezel's tradition; it has
been preserved to us by Mons. Nicolas, and contains very strange
statements. The Bab, it is said, ordered Subh-i-Ezel to place his
dead body, if possible, in a coffin of diamonds, and to inter it
opposite to Shah 'Abdu'l-'Azim, in a spot described in such a way that
only the recipient of the letter could interpret it. 'So I put the
mingled remains of the two bodies in a crystal coffin, diamonds being
beyond me, and I interred it exactly where the Bab had directed
me. The place remained secret for thirty years. The Baha'is in
particular knew nothing of it, but a traitor revealed it to
them. Those blasphemers disinterred the corpse and destroyed it. Or if
not, and if they point out a new burying-place, really containing the
crystal coffin of the body of the Bab which they have purloined, we
[Ezelites] could not consider this new place of sepulture to be
sacred.'

The story of the crystal coffin (really suggested by the Bayan) is too
fantastic to deserve credence. But that the sacred remains had many
resting-places can easily be believed; also that the place of burial
remained secret for many years. Baha-'ullah, however, knew where it
was, and, when circumstances favoured, transported the remains to the