This state of terror and suspicion becoming insupportable to him, he resolved to rid himself of it at any cost.  A slave was ordered to murder the prince.  He refused to obey, and presented his own head.  “Have I, then, none but ingrates and traitors about me, to eat my bread and salt?” cried Abbas,—­“I swear by my sabre and by the Koran, that, to him who will remove Safi Mirza, my generosity and gratitude shall he boundless.”  Bebut the Ambitious advanced, and said,—­“It is written, that what the king wills cannot be wrong.  To me thy will is sacred—­it shall be obeyed.”  He went immediately to seek the prince.  He met him coming out of the bath, accompanied by a single akta or valet.  He drew his sabre, and presenting the royal mandate,—­“Safi Mirza,” said he, “submit!  Thy father wills thy death!”—­“My father wills my death!” exclaimed the unfortunate prince, with a tone “more in sorrow than in anger.”  “What have I done, that he should hate me?” And Bebut laid him dead at his feet.

As a reward for his crime, Abbas sent him the royal vest, called the calaata, and immediately created him his Etimadoulet, or Prime Minister.

Paternal love, however, presently resumed its power.  Remorse now produced the same effect upon the king, as terror had done before.  His nights seemed endless.  The bleeding shade of his son incessantly appeared before him, banishing the peace and slumber to which it had been sacrificed.  Shrouded in the garb of mourning, the monarch of Persia dismissed all pleasure from his court; and, during the rest of his life, could not be known by his attire from the meanest of his subjects.

One day he sent for Bebut, who found him standing on the steps of his throne, entirely clothed in scarlet, the red turban of twelve folds around his head,—­in short, in the garb assumed by the kings of Persia when preparing to pronounce the decree of death.  Bebut shuddered.  “It is written,” said the Sehah, “that what the king wills cannot be wrong.  Give me to-day the same proof of thy obedience which thou didst once before.  Bebut, thou hast a son—­bring me his head!” Bebut attempted to speak.  “Bebut, Etimadoulet, Khan of Schamachia—­is, then, thy ambition satiated, that thou hesitatest to satisfy my commands?  Obey!  Thy life depends on it!”

Bebut returned with the head of his only child.  “Well,” said the father of Mirza, with a horrid smile, “How dost feel?”—­“Let these tears tell you how,” answered the unhappy Khan:  “I have killed with my own hand the being I loved best on earth.  You can ask nothing beyond.  This day, for the first time, I have cursed ambition, which could subject me to a necessity like this.”—­“Go,” said the monarch; “You can now judge what you have made me suffer, in murdering my son.  Ambition has rendered us the two most wretched beings in the empire.  But, be it your comfort, that your ambition can soar no higher; for this last deed has brought you on a level with your sovereign."[7]