“My noble Agha, we must bow to the crisis that has suddenly come upon us. I mourn the event which has elevated me to the highest of human dignities as much as you can do, and detest the agents who have placed me upon the musnud, with hands dyed in my brother’s blood. But as he has been disabled, it was necessary that a sovereign should be found; and I am the next of kin. You know it to be against the canons of our constitution that a blind prince should reign. Were I to refuse to hold the sceptre, I should be looked upon with suspicion, and my life would be in perpetual peril.” “Prince, I shrink from becoming the wife of a man who has obtained his dignities by violence. I acquit you of all participation in the crime which has so suddenly made you a monarch, but will never consent to share your sullied honours. I foresee only misery from my parent’s ambition. Though the deposed king would have heaped upon me the heaviest wrongs which can weigh down the spirit of a virtuous woman, still I would have left him to the punishment which invariably awaits the wicked, administered by a higher arbiter of human dereliction than man.” “Agha!” cried the Prince, passionately, “have I deserved to forfeit your love?” “Not my love, Prince; but my consent to be your bride. You must now form higher views; there is an insuperable bar between us.” “Nay, had we been united while I was only heir-apparent to the throne to which I have been just elevated, I might have soon come to that inheritance to which your father’s violence has prematurely raised me.” “But then you would have ascended the musnud with honour; now, you have ascended it with disgrace.” “I am ready to relinquish all honours for you, Agha.” “That may not be; you have pushed the stone from the precipice, and, in spite of all mortal endeavours, it will roll to the bottom. Farewell, and may your reign be happy.”