home for ever. It might, however, have gone hardly with her if she
had really uttered the prophecy related above. Evidently her husband,
who had accused her of complicity in the crime, had not heard of
it. So she was acquitted. The Bab, too, favoured the suggestion of
her leaving home, and taking her place among his missionaries.
[Footnote: Nicolas, _AMB_, p. 277.] At the dead of night, with
an escort of Babis, she set out ostensibly for Khurasan. The route
which she really adopted, however, took her by the forest-country of
Mazandaran, where she had the leisure necessary for pondering the
religious situation.

The sequel was dramatic. After some days and nights of quietude, she
suddenly made her appearance in the hamlet of Badasht, to which place
a representative conference of Babis had been summoned.

The object of the conference was to correct a widespread
misunderstanding. There were many who thought that the new leader
came, in the most literal sense, to fulfil the Islamic Law. They
realized, indeed, that the object of Muhammad was to bring about an
universal kingdom of righteousness and peace, but they thought this
was to be effected by wading through streams of blood, and with the
help of the divine judgments. The Bab, on the other hand, though not
always consistent, was moving, with some of his disciples, in the
direction of moral suasion; his only weapon was 'the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God.' When the Ka'im appeared all
things would be renewed. But the Ka'im was on the point of
appearing, and all that remained was to prepare for his Coming. No
more should there be any distinction between higher and lower races,
or between male and female. No more should the long, enveloping veil
be the badge of woman's inferiority.