Finally, after the Ghuznevide dynasty had touched a bakers' dozen, came one Byrâm, who was destined to lose the throne for his race by two useless and brutal murders. The first was the public execution of his son-in-law, an apparently harmless prince of Ghor--as the country of the Afghâns was then called. The reason of this act is obscure, though it seems probable he was suspected of high treason. Be that as it may, Kutb-din Ghori-Afghân was an ill man to assail, for he had two big brothers. The first of these, Saîf-ud-din, had no little success in his immediate campaign of revenge. Byrâm fled, Ghuzni was occupied; but finally, by a stratagem, the victor fell into his enemy's hands, whereupon the latter doubled and excelled his former crime, by blackening his captive's face, and sending him face tailwards round the town on a bullock as a preliminary to torturing him, beheading him, and impaling his grand _wazîr_. Allah-ud-din, the last brother, then took up the gloves, after defying Byrâm in these words: "Your threats are as impotent as your arms! It is no new thing for kings to make war on their neighbours, but barbarity like yours is unknown to the brave, and such as none have heard of being exercised towards princes. You may therefore be assured that God has forsaken you, and has ordained that I, Allah-ud-din, should be the instrument of that just revenge denounced against you for putting to death the representative of the independent and very ancient family of Ghor." A quaint touch! that of the "very ancient," showing the value set on blue blood in those days. Allah-ud-din proved a true prophet. In the resulting battle the two "Khurmiels," gigantic brothers-in-arms, the Gog and Magog of those days, brought victory to his arms by the ripping up of elephants' bellies and other prodigies of strength and valour. Byrâm fled, to die miserably in India overwhelmed by misfortunes, while the conqueror earned for himself the title of "The Burner of Worlds," by the deadly revenge he took on Ghuzni and its inhabitants. "The massacre," writes the historian, "continued for the space of seven days, in which time pity seems to have fled from the earth, and the fiery spirits of demons to actuate men. A number of the most venerable and learned persons were, to adorn the triumph, carried in chains to Ferôz-Kuh, where the victor ordered their throats to be cut, and tempering earth with their blood, used it to plaster the walls of his native city." Allah-ud-din thus ended the House of Ghuzni; for though two descendants of Byrâm's kept a feeble hold on power from Lahôre during the space of a few years, he was the last real king. His actions are strangely at variance with his character, for he is said to have "been blest with a noble and generous disposition!"