hreat of
inhuman torture, induced to walk the streets of Tihran, and point out
every one he recognized as being a Babi. He was even coerced into
denouncing any individual whom he thought would be willing and able to pay
a heavy bribe to secure his freedom.

The first to suffer on that calamitous day was the ill-fated Sadiq, who
was instantly slain on the scene of his attempted crime. His body was tied
to the tail of a mule and dragged all the way to Tihran, where it was hewn
into two halves, each of which was suspended and exposed to the public
view, while the Tihranis were invited by the city authorities to mount the
ramparts and gaze upon the mutilated corpse. Molten lead was poured down
the throat of his accomplice, after having subjected him to the torture of
red-hot pincers and limb-rending screws. A comrade of his, Haji Qasim, was
stripped of his clothes, lighted candles were thrust into holes made in
his flesh, and was paraded before the multitude who shouted and cursed
him. Others had their eyes gouged out, were sawn asunder, strangled, blown
from the mouths of cannons, chopped in pieces, hewn apart with hatchets
and maces, shod with horse shoes, bayoneted and stoned. Torture-mongers
vied with each other in running the gamut of brutality, while the
populace, into whose hands the bodies of the hapless victims were
delivered, would close in upon their prey, and would so mutilate them as
to leave no trace of their original form. The executioners, though
accustomed to their own gruesome task, would themselves be amazed at the
fiendish cruelty of the populace. Women and children could be seen led
down the streets by their executioners, their flesh in ribbons, with
candles burning in their wounds, singing with ringing voices before the
silent spectators: "Verily from God we come, and unto Him we return!" As
some of the children expired on the way their tormentors would fling their
bodies under the feet of their fathers and sisters who, proudly treading
upon them, would not deign to give them a second glance. A father,
according to the testimony of a distinguished French writer, rather than
abjure his faith, preferred to have the throats of his two young sons,
both already covered with blood, slit upon his breast, as he lay on the
ground, whilst the elder of the two, a lad of fourteen, vigorously
pressing his right of seniority, demanded to be the first to lay down his
life.

An Austrian officer, Captain Von Goumoens,