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The internal evidence in favour of this story is very strong; there is a striking verisimilitude about it. The execution of a woman to whom so much romantic interest attached cannot have been in the royal square; that would have been to court unpopularity for the Government. That Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn was put to death is certain, but this can hardly have been in public.
When it was the Five Hundredth Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that "King Bahrwan consulted his daughter and her mother and his kinsfolk and they said, 'Do what seemeth good to thee. So he returned straightway to the Minister Ayn Zar and notified to him that his desire had been fulfilled; and the Wazir, abode with him two months, at the end of which time he said to him, 'We beseech thee to bestow upon us that wherefore we came, so we may depart to our own land. 'I hear and obey, answered the King.
But having no means to send him any word, or to hear further of him, we were very sad. 'There was also then in Baghdad an earnest Bābī, formerly a pupil of Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn. This man said to us that as he had no ties and did not care for his life, he desired no greater happiness than to be allowed to seek for him all loved so much, and that he would not return without him.
What hath befallen you, that ye have lost your captains? and they replied, 'O King of the age, as the Wazir Ghatrafan rode forth to fall upon King Teghmus, there appeared to us halfway and when night was half over, the Wazir, Ayn Zar, with cavaliers and champions, and we met on the slopes of Wady Zahran; but ere we were where we found ourselves in the enemy's midst, eye meeting eye; and we fought a fierce fight with them from midnight till morning, many on either side being slain.
Riding down the Wady Damah to the southwest, Lieutenant Amir came upon a spring in a stone-revetted well near the left bank: this Ayn el-Bada' is not to be confounded with the Badi' water, or with the Bada plain, both of which we shall presently visit. A strew of broken quartz around it showed the atelier, and specimens of scattered fragments, glass and pottery, were gathered.
She was also an eloquent speaker and experienced in the intricate measures of Persian poetry. Who was this Personage? It appears that Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn thought Him slow in bringing forward these claims. Is there any one who can be thought of but Baha-'ullah? The Bahaite tradition confidently answers in the negative.
"You cannot possibly know my news," said the Ḳalantar; "it is a request from the Prime Minister. You will be conducted to Niyavaran, and asked, 'Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn, are you a Bābī? You will simply answer, 'No. You will live alone for some time, and avoid giving people anything to talk about. The Prime Minister will keep his own opinion about you, but he will not exact more of you than this."
It was a letter which she wrote after the death of the Sayyid to Mullā Ḥuseyn of Bushraweyh which brought her rare gifts to the knowledge of the Bāb. Ḥuseyn himself was not commissioned to offer Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn as a member of the new society, but the Bāb 'knew what was in man, and divined what the gifted woman was desiring.
'I conducted Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn into the house of her father, to whom I rendered an account of what I had seen. Thereupon he betook himself to the traveller's room, and tried to convince her of the error in which she was entangled. He entirely failed, however, and, furious before that settled calm and earnestness, was led to curse the Bāb and to load him with insults.
He went in alone into the enderūn, but soon returned, accompanied by Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn, and gave me a folded paper, saying to me, "You will conduct this woman to the garden of Ilkhaní, and will give her into the charge of Aziz Khan the Serdar." 'A horse was brought, and I helped Ḳurratu'l 'Ayn to mount. I was afraid, however, that the Bābīs would find out what was passing.
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