thought at first this inclination was nothing but a
regard which proceeded from an excess of their own friendship for each
other, which they still preserved: but as the two princes advanced in
years, that friendship grew into a violent love, when they appeared in
their eyes to possess graces that blinded their reason. They knew how
criminal their passion was, and did all they could to resist it; but
the familiar intercourse with them, and the habit of admiring,
praising, and caressing them from their infancy, which they could not
restrain when they grew up, inflamed their desires to such a height as
to overcome their reason and virtue. It was their and the princes'
ill-fortune, that the latter being used to be so treated by them, had
not the least suspicion of their infamous passion.

The two queens had not concealed from each other this passion,
but had not the boldness to declare it to the princes they loved;
they at last resolved to do it by a letter, and to execute their
wicked design, availed themselves of the king's absence, when he
was gone on a hunting party for three or four days.

Prince Amgiad presided at the council on the day of his father's
departure, and administered justice till two or three o'clock in the
afternoon. As he returned to the palace from the council-chamber, an
eunuch took him aside, and gave him a letter from queen Haiatalnefous.
Amgiad took it, and read it with horror. "Traitor," said he, to the
eunuch as soon as he had perused it through, "is this the fidelity
thou owest thy master and thy king?" At these words he drew his sabre
and cut off his head.

Having done this in a transport of anger he ran to the princess
Badoura his mother, shewed her the letter, told her the contents
of it, and from whom it came. Instead of hearkening to him, she
fell into a passion, and said, "Son, it is all a calumny and
imposture; queen Haiatalnefous is a very discreet princess, and
you are very bold to talk to me against her." The prince, enraged
at his mother, exclaimed, "You are both equally wicked, and were
it not for the respect I owe my father, this day should have been
the last of Haiatalnefous's life."

Queen Badoura might have imagined by the example of her son
Amgiad, that prince Assad, who was not less virtuous, would not
receive more favourably a declaration of love, similar to that
which had been made to his brother. Yet that did not hinder her
persisting in her abominable design; she, the