erer pleaded with them to pierce two holes in
his breast, two in his shoulders, one in the nape of his neck, and four
others in his back--a wish they complied with. Standing erect as an arrow,
his eyes glowing with stoic fortitude, unperturbed by the howling
multitude or the sight of his own blood streaming from his wounds, and
preceded by minstrels and drummers, he led the concourse that pressed
round him to the final place of his martyrdom. Every few steps he would
interrupt his march to address the bewildered bystanders in words in which
he glorified the Bab and magnified the significance of his own death. As
his eyes beheld the candles flickering in their bloody sockets, he would
burst forth in exclamations of unrestrained delight. Whenever one of them
fell from his body he would with his own hand pick it up, light it from
the others, and replace it. "Why dost thou not dance?" asked the
executioner mockingly, "since thou findest death so pleasant?" "Dance?"
cried the sufferer, "In one hand the wine-cup, in one hand the tresses of
the Friend. Such a dance in the midst of the market-place is my desire!"
He was still in the bazaar when the flowing of a breeze, fanning the
flames of the candles now burning deep in his flesh, caused it to sizzle,
whereupon he burst forth addressing the flames that ate into his wounds:
"You have long lost your sting, O flames, and have been robbed of your
power to pain me. Make haste, for from your very tongues of fire I can
hear the voice that calls me to my Beloved." In a blaze of light he walked
as a conqueror might have marched to the scene of his victory. At the foot
of the gallows he once again raised his voice in a final appeal to the
multitude of onlookers. He then prostrated himself in the direction of the
shrine of the Imam-Zadih Hasan, murmuring some words in Arabic. "My work
is now finished," he cried to the executioner, "come and do yours." Life
still lingered in him as his body was sawn into two halves, with the
praise of his Beloved still fluttering from his dying lips. The scorched
and bloody remnants of his corpse were, as he himself had requested,
suspended on either side of the Gate of Naw, mute witnesses to the
unquenchable love which the Bab had kindled in the breasts of His
disciples.

The violent conflagration kindled as a result of the attempted
assassination of the sovereign could not be confined to the capital. It
overran the adjoining provinces, ravaged Mazindara