lately-terminated contest.

He therefore sent an envoy into Turkestan, well supplied with rich
gifts, whose instructions were to procure by some means or other the
death of Bahram. Having sounded the Khan upon the business and met with
a rebuff, the envoy addressed himself to the Khatun, the Khan's wife,
and by liberal presents induced her to come into his views. A slave
was easily found who undertook to carry out his mistress's wishes, and
Bahram was despatched the same day by means of a poisoned dagger. It is
painful to find that one thus ungrateful to his friends and relentless
to his enemies made, to a certain extent, profession of Christianity.
Little as his heart can have been penetrated by its spirit, Chosroes
seems certainly, in the earlier part of his reign, to have given
occasion for the suspicion, which his subjects are said to have
entertained, that he designed to change his religion, and confess
himself a convert to the creed of the Greeks. During the period of his
exile, he was, it would seem, impressed by what he saw and heard, of
the Christian worship and faith; he learnt to feel or profess a high
veneration for the Virgin; and he adopted the practice, common at the
time, of addressing his prayers and vows to the saints and martyrs,
who were practically the principal objects of the Oriental Christians'
devotions. Sergius, a martyr, hold in high repute by the Christians of
Osrhoene and Mesopotamia, was adopted by the superstitious prince as
a sort of patron saint; and it became his habit, in circumstances of
difficulty, to vow some gift or other to the shrine of St. Sergius
at Sergiopolis, in case of the event corresponding to his wishes. Two
occasions are recorded where, on sending his gift, he accompanied
it with a letter explaining the circumstances of his vow and its
fulfilment; and even the letters themselves have come down to us, but in
a Greek version. In one, Chosroes ascribes the success of his arms on a
particular occasion to the influence of his self-chosen patron; in the
other, he credits him with having procured by his prayers the pregnancy
of Sira (Shirin), the most beautiful and best beloved of his wives. It
appears that Sira was a Christian, and that in marrying her Chosroes had
contravened the laws of his country, which forbade the king to have a
Christian wife. Her influence over him was considerable, and she is said
to have been allowed to build numerous churches and monasteries in and