understood, while
the rest heard but the sound of His voice.
The colonel of the regiment appeared in person: and it was before noon on
the twenty-eighth day of _Sh_a'ban in the year [A.H.] one thousand two
hundred and sixty-six.(14) Suddenly he gave orders to fire. At this volley
the bullets produced such an effect that the breasts [of the victims] were
riddled, and their limbs were completely dissected, except their faces,
which were but little marred.
Then they removed those two bodies from the square to the edge of the moat
outside the city, and that night they remained by the edge of the moat.
Next day the Russian consul came with an artist and took a picture of
those two bodies in the posture wherein they had fallen at the edge of the
moat.
On the second night at midnight the Babis carried away the two bodies.
On the third day the people did not find the bodies, and some supposed
that the wild beasts had devoured them, so that the doctors proclaimed
from the summits of their pulpits saying, "The holy body of the immaculate
Imam and that of the true _Sh_i'ite are preserved from the encroachments
of beasts of prey and creeping things and wounds, but the body of this
person have the wild beasts torn in pieces." But after the fullest
investigation and inquiry it hath been proved that when the Bab had
dispersed all His writings and personal properties and it had become clear
and evident from various signs that these events would shortly take place,
therefore, on the second day of these events, Sulayman _Kh_an the son of
Yahya _Kh_an, one of the nobles of A_dh_irbayjan devoted to the Bab,
arrived, and proceeded straightway to the house of the mayor of Tabriz.
And since the mayor was an old friend, associate, and confidant of his;
since, moreover, he was of the mystic temperament and did not entertain
aversion or dislike for any sect, Sulayman _Kh_an divulged this secret to
him saying, "Tonight I, with several others, will endeavor by every means
and artifice to rescue the body. Even though it be not possible, come what
may we will make an attack, and either attain our object or pour out our
lives freely in this way." "Such troubles," answered the mayor, "are in no
wise necessary." He then sent one of his private servants named Haji
Allah-Yar, who, by whatever means and proceedings it was, obtained the
body without trouble or difficulty and handed it over to Haji Sulayman
_Kh_an. And when it was morning the sentine
|