When M. Kāmrān had brought Kābul into his possession, he practised various kinds of cruelty and opened his hands to shed people's blood and to seize their property. He caused Mihtar Wāṣil and Mihtar Wakīl, who were special royal slaves, to be blinded. Ḥisāmu-d-dīn ‘Alī, son of Mīr Khalīfa, whom his Majesty had sum­moned to his personal service, and whose fief he had transferred to Ulugh Mīrzā, had come about this time to Kābul and Kāmrān in revenge for his firmness at Zamān Dāwar had him castrated and put to death in a most horrible manner. Cūli Bahādur too, who was a loyal and approved servant, was put to death, and Khwāja Mu‘aam, Bahādur Khān, Atka Khān, Nadīm Kōka and many other household servants were put into prison. The Mīrzā thus prepared for himself spiritual and temporal ruin, and an evil name in realm and religion, He was continually tempting and ruining men by deceitful letters.* Among such was Sherafkan who was induced to desert; and Ḥasan Beg Kōka and Sulān Muḥammad Bakhshī were by lies brought to separate themselves (from Humāyūn). Insincere, low dispositioned ones of narrow capacity for the idea of a small advantage put the dust of the world into the cup of their avarice and trod the path of disloyalty. And it appears that the main cause of the capture of Kābul was the discord of men and their negligence and want of vigilance and circumspection. For at that time Muḥammad ‘Alī Taghāi was Dārōgha of the city for his Majesty Jahānbānī, but he continually took the path of carelessness, and did not apply the rules of wariness. Faẓīl Beg too set up for himself a separate scheme (lit. a separate shop) in the city and had ideas of becoming independent (of Muḥammad ‘Alī). From smallness of capacity and inefficiency they opposed one another and struck an axe on their own foot. When Kābul fell into the hands of the Mīrzā he set about collecting troops and in arranging for sedition. A large number collected round him. One day he was seated on the top of the citadel, and Walad Beg, Abūl Qāsim and many others of the Shāh's bodyguard, who had got leave and were proceeding towards Persia came to pay their respects to the Mīrzā. His Majesty the Shāhinshāh was also adorning the Mīrzā's banquet with the light of his presence. All the Mīrzā's confidential servants were set upon rapacity (darpai akhẕ ū jar), and the men round about, who were like flies at the stall of a sweetmeat-seller, were falling upon one another. A good service presented itself to Abūl Qāsim, and he whispered to Walad Beg that it would be a loyal act if they who were thirty active men should do a brave deed in unison, finish off the Mīrzā, and glorify this young plant of the springtide of dominion and fortune, to wit, his Majesty the Shāhinshāh. Walad Beg, who was not a man of war, showed backwardness towards this proposal and said “We are travellers, why should we intermeddle”? As the top-thread of every act is bound to some special point of time what possibility was there of its appearing before that?