The disgust which the pampered minion daily excited by his arrogance rendered him shortly so unpopular, that the brothers Feroze and Ahmud Chan resolved to embrace the advice of those Omrahs who had promised to favour their cause. Relying upon their assurances, in the sincerity of which they were confirmed by the growing unpopularity of Lallcheen, they sent Meir Feiz Oolla Anjoo, Syud Kumal-ood-Deen, and other persons of distinction, to the slave and the queen-mother, representing that fear only had occasioned their rebellion, of which they now sincerely repented, and promising that, if the sovereign would send them written assurances of pardon, they would repair to court. The traitor, imagining that if they were once in the capital he should have the means of disposing of them at pleasure, was elated by these overtures; and repairing forthwith to the king, persuaded him to listen favourably to their supplications. Accordingly letters, containing flattering assurances of forgiveness, were immediately despatched to the refractory princes. Since her last positive refusal to espouse the king, Agha had never been once permitted to leave her apartment; but having found means to corrupt the two women to whose custody she was consigned, she quitted her father’s house unobserved, and left the city in a covered litter. Knowing that Feroze and Ahmud Chan were at the Fort of Sagur, she determined to proceed thither, and cast herself upon their protection. They received her with the greatest respect. Her story deeply interested them. Her generous forbearance in refusing to marry the reigning sovereign because his ascent to the musnud had been stained with blood exalted her highly in their estimation, and in their overtures to the king they stipulated in her favour for oblivion of the past and assurances of future kind treatment. The father, though exasperated at her escape, thought that the wisest policy would be to dissemble his anger, hoping yet to overcome her repugnance, and to see her queen of the Deccan. She, however, refused to return to the capital unless she were guaranteed the protection of some influential person who could shield her from her father’s violence. It was ultimately agreed that she should dwell with the queen, who offered her an asylum in her palace. She had some difficulty in concurring with any arrangement that should put her again in the power of him who, though her natural protector, had treated her with savage severity. She feared that under the queen’s roof she should not be secure from the oppression of that father towards whom she felt the natural instincts of affection giving way to those harsher feelings which tyranny, even though exercised under the questionable plea of paternal authority, can never fail to excite.