The end came not through abject surrender, but through the perfidy of the foe. Prince Mihdí-Qulí Mírzá, brother of Muḥammad [_Sh_]áh, took a solemn oath on the Qur'án that their lives and property would be inviolate should they come out of the fortress and disperse in peace. A horse was sent for Quddús to take him to the camp of the Prince. But once the companions had been lured out of the fortress, the oath was conveniently forgotten. The Bábís were massacred, the fortress was pillaged and razed to the ground. Hideous outrages were committed upon the corpses of the slain, and a vast area of the forest was strewn with their remains: disembowelled, hacked to pieces, burned. Survivors were few. No more than three or four were kept to be heavily ransomed. A few who were left for dead recovered. Still a few others were sold into slavery and eventually found their way back to the company of their fellow-believers. All the dead were Persians except two Arabs of Ba[_gh_]dád who had come out with Ṭáhirih from `Iráq.[12] Quddús was taken to Bárfurú[_sh_], his native town, where Sa`ídu'l-`Ulamá, his pitiless foe, awaited him. Prince Mihdí-Qulí Mírzá, oblivious to his pledge, forsook Quddús and gave him into the hands of that bloodthirsty priest. Imprecations were heaped upon the head of the captive. He was made to suffer refined tortures and searing agonies which an insanely jealous adversary had devised for him. At the height of his torments he was heard to say: Forgive, O my God, the trespasses of this people. Deal with them in Thy mercy, for they know not what we already have discovered and cherish.[13] In the public square of Bárfurú[_sh_] (the Sabzih-Maydán), Sa`ídu'l-`Ulamá struck Quddús down with an axe, and any instrument which a frenzied mob could lay its hands on was used to tear his flesh and dismember him. Then they threw his shattered, mutilated body onto a blazing fire lit in the square. That night, when all were gone, Ḥájí Muḥammad-`Alíy-i-Ḥamzih, a divine, humane and compassionate, universally acclaimed for his integrity, collected from the dying embers what remained of the body of the martyr, and reverently buried it. The martyrdom of Quddús took place in the month of May 1849, seven months after his fellow-Bábís had first taken refuge in the fort of [_Sh_]ay[_kh_] Ṭabarsí.[14] It marked the end of an episode which had begun, eleven months before, with the raising of the Black Standard on the plain of [_Kh_]urásán; during which deeds of incredible heroism by some three hundred Bábís had stunned and humiliated opposition forces vastly outnumbering them; which had witnessed the deaths of half the Letters of the Living, including the first, the Bábu'l-Báb, and Quddús, the last and greatest; and which closed with acts of treachery and atrocious cruelty. Words which Quddús spoke during their occupation of the fort are a fitting commentary upon the spirit of those who defended it: