As they traveled, some riders advanced to meet them, kinsmen of Táhirih’s from Qazvín, and they wished to lead her away alone, unescorted by the others, to her father’s house. Táhirih refused, saying: “These are in my company.” In this way they entered Qazvín. Táhirih proceeded to her father’s house, while the Arabs who had formed her escort alighted at a caravanserai. Táhirih soon left her father and went to live with her brother, and there the great ladies of the city would come to visit her; all this until the murder of Mullá Taqí,(124) when every Bábí in Qazvín was taken prisoner. Some were sent to Ṭihrán and then returned to Qazvín and martyred. Mullá Taqí’s murder came about in this way: One day, when that besotted tyrant had mounted his pulpit, he began to mock and revile the great _Sh_ay_kh_ Aḥmad-i-Ahsá’í. Shamelessly, grossly, screaming obscenities, he cried out: “That _Sh_ay_kh_ is the one who has kindled this fire of evil, and subjected the whole world to this ordeal!” There was an inquirer in the audience, a native of _Sh_íráz. He found the taunts, jeers and indecencies to be more than he could bear. Under cover of darkness he betook himself to the mosque, plunged a spearhead between the lips of Mullá Taqí and fled. The next morning they arrested the defenseless believers and thereupon subjected them to agonizing torture, though all were innocent and knew nothing of what had come to pass. There was never any question of investigating the case; the believers repeatedly declared their innocence but no one paid them any heed. When a few days had passed the killer gave himself up; he confessed to the authorities, informing them that he had committed the murder because Mullá Taqí had vilified _Sh_ay_kh_ Aḥmad. “I deliver myself into your hands,” he told them, “so that you will set these innocent people free.” They arrested him as well, put him in the stocks, chained him, and sent him in chains, along with the others, to Ṭihrán. Once there he observed that despite his confession, the others were not released. By night, he made his escape from the prison and went to the house of Riḍá _Kh_án—that rare and precious man, that star-sacrifice among the lovers of God—the son of Muḥammad _Kh_án, Master of the Horse to Muḥammad _Sh_áh. He stayed there for a time, after which he and Riḍá _Kh_án secretly rode away to the Fort of _Sh_ay_kh_ Tabarsí in Mázindarán.(125) Muḥammad _Kh_án sent riders after them to track them down, but try as they might, no one could find them. Those two horsemen got to the Fort of Tabarsí, where both of them won a martyr’s death. As for the other friends who were in the prison at Ṭihrán, some of these were returned to Qazvín and they too suffered martyrdom.