instilled on his arrival, the resourcefulness he displayed, the fervor and
gladness with which the besieged listened, at morn and at even-tide, to
the voice intoning the verses of his celebrated commentary on the Sad of
Samad, to which he had already, while in Sari, devoted a treatise thrice
as voluminous as the Qur'an itself, and which he was now, despite the
tumultuary attacks of the enemy and the privations he and his companions
were enduring, further elucidating by adding to that interpretation as
many verses as he had previously written. We remember with thrilling
hearts that memorable encounter when, at the cry "Mount your steeds, O
heroes of God!" Mulla Husayn, accompanied by two hundred and two of the
beleaguered and sorely-distressed companions, and preceded by Quddus,
emerged before daybreak from the Fort, and, raising the shout of "Ya
Sahibu'z-Zaman!", rushed at full charge towards the stronghold of the
Prince, and penetrated to his private apartments, only to find that, in
his consternation, he had thrown himself from a back window into the moat,
and escaped bare-footed, leaving his host confounded and routed. We see
relived in poignant memory that last day of Mulla Husayn's earthly life,
when, soon after midnight, having performed his ablutions, clothed himself
in new garments, and attired his head with the Bab's turban, he mounted
his charger, ordered the gate of the Fort to be opened, rode out at the
head of three hundred and thirteen of his companions, shouting aloud "Ya
Sahibu'z-Zaman!", charged successively the seven barricades erected by the
enemy, captured every one of them, notwithstanding the bullets that were
raining upon him, swiftly dispatched their defenders, and had scattered
their forces when, in the ensuing tumult, his steed became suddenly
entangled in the rope of a tent, and before he could extricate himself he
was struck in the breast by a bullet which the cowardly Abbas-Quli
_Kh_an-i-Larijani had discharged, while lying in ambush in the branches of
a neighboring tree. We acclaim the magnificent courage that, in a
subsequent encounter, inspired nineteen of those stout-hearted companions
to plunge headlong into the camp of an enemy that consisted of no less
than two regiments of infantry and cavalry, and to cause such
consternation that one of their leaders, the same Abbas-Quli _Kh_an,
falling from his horse, and leaving in his distress one of his boots
hanging from the stirrup, ran away, h