CHAPTER XV.

HOW ACOMAT WAS TAKEN PRISONER.

<+> (A messenger breaks in upon Acomat’s festivities with the news that Soldan was slain, and Argon released and marching to attack him.  Acomat escapes to seek shelter with the Sultan of Babylon, i.e. of Egypt, attended by a very small escort.  The Officer in command of a Pass by which he had to go, seeing the state of things, arrests him and carries him to the Court (probably Tabriz), where Argon was already arrived.)

CHAPTER XVI.

HOW ACOMAT WAS SLAIN BY ORDER OF HIS NEPHEW.

And so when the Officer of the Pass came before Argon bringing Acomat captive, he was in a great state of exultation, and welcomed his uncle with a malediction,[1] saying that he should have his deserts.  And he straightway ordered the army to be assembled before him, and without taking counsel with any one, commanded the prisoner to be put to death, and his body to be destroyed.  So the officer appointed to this duty took Acomat away and put him to death, and threw his body where it never was seen again.

[1] “Il dit a son ungle qe il soit le mau-venu” (see supra, p. 21).

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW ARGON WAS RECOGNISED AS SOVEREIGN.

And when Argon had done as you have heard, and remained in possession of the Throne and of the Royal Palace, all the Barons of the different Provinces, who had been subject to his father Abaga, came and performed homage before him, and obeyed him, as was his due.[NOTE 1] And after Argon was well established in the sovereignty he sent CASAN, his son, with 30,000 horse to the Arbre Sec, I mean to the region so-called, to watch the frontier.  Thus then Argon got back the government.  And you must know that Argon began his reign in the year 1286 of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.  Acomat had reigned two years, and Argon reigned six years; and at the end of those six years he became ill and died; but some say ’twas of poison.[NOTE 2]

NOTE 1.—­Arghun, a prisoner (see last note), and looking for the worst, was upheld by his courageous wife BULUGHAN (see Prologue, ch. xvii.), who shared his confinement.  The order for his execution, as soon as the camp should next move, had been issued.

BUKA the Jelair, who had been a great chief under Abaka, and had resentments against Ahmad, got up a conspiracy in favour of Arghun, and effected his release as well as the death of ALINAK, Ahmad’s commander-in-chief.  Ahmad fled towards Tabriz, pursued by a band of the Karaunas, who succeeded in taking him.  When Arghun came near and saw his uncle in their hands, he called out in exultation Morio!—­an exclamation, says Wassaf, which the Mongols used when successful in archery,—­and with a gesture gave the signal for the prisoner’s death (10th August 1284).