The Prince in compliance with the advice of some zealous, indeed, but short-sighted and unexperienced friends, resolved to seek an asylum in the territory of Melec-djiven, a powerful Zemindar of those parts, who owed him the highest obligations. This Zemindar or Prince had been many years ago condemned by Shah-djehan for some crime to be made fast to the foot of an elephant; and the sentence was going to be executed, when the Prince obtained his grace from his father, and thereby restored him to life. This Afghan, hearing of the Prince’s distress, intreated him by letters, couched in the most respectful style, to come and repose himself in the territories of a man who was his grateful devoted servant; and the Prince, who judged of that man’s feelings by his own heart, took that road, in hopes that with so powerful an assistance he might possibly retrieve his affairs. Good God, what a fatal mistake!—That infamous, ungrateful, unfeeling wretch was all this while endeavouring to bring the Prince within his power, with a firm intention to ingratiate himself for ever with Aoreng-zib by unexpectedly complimenting him with such a present, that is, with the person and life of a benefactor, to whom he owed no less than his own life. The infernal Afghan, having set out with such a design in his accursed breast, met the Prince on the road; and with all the artifice and all the hypocrisy so conspicuous in the devil, his prototype, he brought him to his palace, where he seemed so intent on serving him, that he lulled his mind into a thorough security. Unfortunately for the Prince, it happened that his consort, worn down by the fatigues and other hardships of so precipitate a flight, as well as overcome by her grief and sorrow, fell into an ill habit of body, which rest might have cured, but which continual grief and endless fatigue had rendered mortal; and she expired in a few days in the arms of a beloved husband, whom her sex forbade her to follow, but whose parting her tender heart could never bear. A most affectionate attachment had at all times subsisted between this unfortunate couple; and this unexpected stroke overwhelmed the disconsolate Prince under the load of some mountains of grief and woe. His mind, fatigued by his adverse fortune, had seemed to flag even before this; but now he fell prostrated, and seemed to have lost his senses. Thinking himself in perfect safety with Melec-djiven, he parted with G8l-mahmed, that brave soldier, who had prodigued his blood and fortune for him, and had come to his assistance from so far, at a time when he was alone and past all assistance; he joined to him the eunuch Maac8l, a brave zealous servant, who had already shed his blood in his defence; and he ordered those invaluable friends to take their best men with them, and to carry the coffin of the Princess to Lahor, where she was to be entombed in the Mausoleum of Mollahmir Bedaqhshani*, who had been the Princess’s patron Saint. Nor were they to return, but after having acquitted themselves of that office. On the depar­ture of those two invaluable men, the Prince remained alone in his enemy’s house, with only some eunuchs, some menial servants, and a number of such useless impotent people. But hardly were those two men gone, when a smell of treason spread all over the house of that abominable Afghan, and at last affected the olfactory nerves of the Prince’s understanding. His con­fidence turned into fear and dismay; he repented of his having trusted that infernal man; and without saying a word of his dis­covery, he expressed a desire of going to Candahar. The man so far from disapproving the design, offered to escort him in the voyage; and having accompanied him to the next stage, he requested his permission to return in order to provide some neces­saries, leaving at the same time with the Prince, a brother of his, at the head of a strong body; and this brother had orders to arrest him and to bring him back. The brother, having suffered the Prince to advance two or three cosses more, at once arrested all his retinue, disarmed those defenceless people, and having laid his infamous hands upon the Prince and his little daughter, he had the heart to carry them back, together with the women attached to his person, and all that disconsolate impotent multitude that composed his retinue. All these he delivered to that accursed man, who had long ago conceived the design of arresting his benefactor, and killing his guest. He lodged the Prince and his forlorn family in a separate apartment, set a guard over them, and sent notice of what he had done to his two next neighbours, Radja Djehi-sing and Bahadyr-qhan, who both were in pursuit of the fugitive Prince. He at the same time informed Bakyr-qhan, Fodjdar of the country, of what he had done. The Fodjdar that very moment transmitted the letter to Court with a supplique of his own, and there came some moments after two suppliques more to the same effect, from both Djehi-sing and Bahadyr-qhan. Aoreng-zib on receiving these letters expressed his satisfaction, and ordered the military music to strike up, whilst his whole Court, with one voice, loaded Melec-djivan with curses, reproaches, and imprecations.

That Emperor, so zealous for the honor of religion, so full of piety and meekness, that brother so grateful for the important services rendered him by a brother, now in the abyss of distress, immediately dispatched a dromedery courier, with a qhylaat for the perfidious Afghan, changed his name into that of Baqht-yar-qhan*, presented him with the command of two hundred horse, and the grade of a thousand, and directed Bahadyr-qhan to bring his prisoner to Court. The forlorn Prince being brought close to the Capital, an order came to put an iron collar round his neck, with cuffs and chains on his hands and feet, and to carry him in procession from the Lahor-gate to the Chandni-chock (market or square), so as to pass by two of the gates of the citadel; from whence he was to proceed along the streets and markets, to Saad-ollah-qhan’s Square; after which he was to be carried to the Qhavvass-p8ra, in old Delhi; there to be confined in the apartment called Qhyzyr-abad. Mean­while the officer, Bahadyr-qhan, was introduced to the presence, where he was received with much distinction, and loaded with favours. The next day that infernal Melec-djiven, now Baqht-yar-qhan, was to come to Court. That abominable wretch having been hardy enough to make his appearance in broad day-light, was no sooner descried in his way to the citadel, as he was crossing the Chandni-chock, than he and his Afghans were loaded with curses and execrations by some of Dara-shecoh’s slave-boys, who being immediately joined by a number of shop-keepers, and all the idlers that thronged the streets, the Afghans were assaulted with baskets full of dung and dirt, with clods of earth, and with brick-bats and stones; and the attack was made with so much fury, that numbers of them were killed on the spot. Nor could the traitor have escaped himself, had not the Cutval, or Police officer, run to his assistance at the head of a detachment of the Imperial Guards, who rescued him alive from the hands of that enraged multitude; for now the people standing at their doors or upon their terraces, loaded the Afghans with execra­tions; and proceeding from words to blows, a general sedition was insensibly rising, when the Cutval and the guards making their appearance, put an end to the tumult. The people dispersed, and the Cutval carried the Afghan safe to the citadel.

Upon inquiry it was found that the tumult had arisen from some of Dara-shecoh’s slave-boys, and from some of the Ahedian guards; and these the religious Emperor, scrupulously attached to the forms of law, would not order to be put to the sword. He only applied to the Mufties and the ecclesiastical doctors, from whom he asked what the law decreed against such seditious insolent people? And the doctors answered. “That as the commission of a little evil for the attainment of a mighty good was lawful in some cases, and expedient in others, there might be no harm in putting to death people convicted of having opposed the Qhalif’s* intention, or resisted his commands.” After this sentence those unfortunate people, who so far from having acted by premeditated malice, had only given way to the violence of their feelings, were all seized and executed with all the forms of law. Some days after this execution, he assembled all the doctors, and in frequent assembly produced a certain literary performance of Dara-shecoh’s, where the latter seemed to inculcate the precepts of Quietisme, and Mysti­cisme, and openly to give his approbation, and even preference to some tenets of the Gentoo-law. The performance being unanimously acknowledged to be his*; and he being also acknowledged to have pronounced these verses that highly reflected on the Musulmanisme, and strongly favored of infidelity;—

“Both believers and unbelievers seek God in their homages;

And both say in their respective languages, there is no God, but God; and that He has no companion.”*