The daughter of Baha, Bahiah Khanum, gives a contradictory account of the same affair.[505] She says that the feast was at Azal's house and that rice for both was served on the same plate, having been prepared in Azal's house. "The portion of rice intended for my father was flavoured with onions, of which he was very fond. The servant, by direction of Azal, placed this portion towards my father. He ate some of it, but fortunately not very much. He preferred the rice prepared for Azal, and ate of it. Soon after eating he became ill. The physician declared that he had been poisoned. He was so desperately ill for twenty-two days that the physician said he could not live." Mirza Abul Fazl, a Bahai writer, says,[506] "Azal sought to poison Baha Ullah, and attempted to do so twice, but failed to accomplish his design." "He repeatedly planned to murder Baha." Baha himself alludes to these events in the "Sura-i-Haykal."[507] "My brother warred with me. He desired to drink my blood. He took counsel with one of my attendants tempting him unto this. We went out from among them and dwelt in another house. Neither did we see him afterwards." Thus we have brother against brother, each accusing the other of attempting fratricide. How shall we settle the question of veracity? Mr. Phelps makes a plea for Baha, but his words lack foundation. He says that Azal's story "is a _transparent_ fabrication because it assumes an impossible ignorance on the part of Baha Ullah that Azal disliked onions, as well as the impossible hypothesis that Baha Ullah would knowingly partake of food in which poison had been placed." But neither of these "impossible" things are a part of the story. The first objection can only be taken, if at all, to Professor Browne's abridged account in the "Traveller's Narrative," and not to the original in "Hasht Behesht," which distinctly states that onions had communicated their flavour to the other side of the platter, contrary to intention; and, secondly, Baha supposed when he ate (according to the "Hasht Behesht" account) that the poison had not communicated itself to his side of the platter of rice. Those familiar with Persian _pillau_, or boiled rice, in which each grain is separate and dry, will see that it would ordinarily be quite possible to put onions and poison on opposite sides of the platter without either reaching the other side. Each man would help himself, according to Persian custom, from the side of the dish next to him. Moreover, it was customary to prepare the food for Azal in the kitchen of Baha.'[508] Up to the time of the incident they had both continued to live in the same house. This is evident from Baha's words in the "Sura-i-Haykal," where he says, "We went out, dwelt in _another house, neither did we see him afterwards_." This agrees with the "Hasht Behesht." In this and several other particulars the narrative of Bahiah Khanum is defective or misleading. Mr. Phelps' plea, on