sultan followed his guide, invested the house with his guards, and
extinguishing the torches, pronounced the death of the criminal, who had
been seized in the act of rapine and adultery. After the execution of
his sentence, the lights were rekindled, Mahmud fell prostrate in
prayer, and rising from the ground, demanded some homely fare, which he
devoured with the voraciousness of hunger. The poor man, whose injury he
had avenged, was unable to suppress his astonishment and curiosity; and
the courteous monarch condescended to explain the motives of this
singular behavior. "I had reason to suspect that none, except one of my
sons, could dare to perpetrate such an outrage; and I extinguished the
lights, that my justice might be blind and inexorable. My prayer was a
thanksgiving on the discovery of the offender; and so painful was my
anxiety, that I had passed three days without food since the first
moment of your complaint."

II. The sultan of Gazna had declared war against the dynasty of the
Bowides, the sovereigns of the western Persia: he was disarmed by an
epistle of the sultana mother, and delayed his invasion till the manhood
of her son. [8] "During the life of my husband," said the artful regent,
"I was ever apprehensive of your ambition: he was a prince and a soldier
worthy of your arms. He is now no more his sceptre has passed to a woman
and a child, and you dare not attack their infancy and weakness. How
inglorious would be your conquest, how shameful your defeat! and yet the
event of war is in the hand of the Almighty." Avarice was the only
defect that tarnished the illustrious character of Mahmud; and never has
that passion been more richly satiated. [811] The Orientals exceed the
measure of credibility in the account of millions of gold and silver,
such as the avidity of man has never accumulated; in the magnitude of
pearls, diamonds, and rubies, such as have never been produced by the
workmanship of nature. [9] Yet the soil of Hindostan is impregnated with
precious minerals: her trade, in every age, has attracted the gold and
silver of the world; and her virgin spoils were rifled by the first of
the Mahometan conquerors. His behavior, in the last days of his life,
evinces the vanity of these possessions, so laboriously won, so
dangerously held, and so inevitably lost. He surveyed the vast and
various chambers of the treasury of Gazna, burst into tears, and again
closed the doors, without bestowing any portion