Abbas was one day musing, with some uneasiness, on the valour and popular virtues of his son, when the young prince suddenly appeared. He threw himself at his father's feet. He presented him a note which he had just received, and in which, without discovering their names, the nobles of the kingdom declared their weariness of his tyranny. They proposed to the youth to ascend the throne, and undertook to clear his way to it. Safi Mirza, indignant at a project which tended to turn him into a parricide, declared all to the Sebah, and placed himself entirely at his disposal. Abbas embraced him, covered him with caresses, and felt his affection for him increase; but, from that moment, his fears redoubled. His anxiety even prevented him from sleeping. In order to get at the conspirators, he caused numbers of really innocent persons to die in tortures; and, feeling that every execution rendered him still more odious, he feared that his son would be again solicited, and would not again have virtue to resist. This state of terror and suspicion becoming insupportable to him, he resolved to rid himself of it at any cost. A slave was ordered to murder the prince. He refused to obey, and presented his own head. "Have I, then, none but ingrates and traitors about me, to eat my bread and salt?" cried Abbas,--"I swear by my sabre and by the Koran, that, to him who will remove Safi Mirza, my generosity and gratitude shall he boundless." Bebut the Ambitious advanced, and said,--"It is written, that what the king wills cannot be wrong. To me thy will is sacred--it shall be obeyed." He went immediately to seek the prince. He met him coming out of the bath, accompanied by a single akta or valet. He drew his sabre, and presenting the royal mandate,--"Safi Mirza," said he, "submit! Thy father wills thy death!"--"My father wills my death!" exclaimed the unfortunate prince, with a tone "more in sorrow than in anger." "What have I done, that he should hate me?" And Bebut laid him dead at his feet. As a reward for his crime, Abbas sent him the royal vest, called the calaata, and immediately created him his Etimadoulet, or Prime Minister. Paternal love, however, presently resumed its power. Remorse now produced the same effect upon the king, as terror had done before. His nights seemed endless. The bleeding shade of his son incessantly appeared before him, banishing the peace and slumber to which it had been sacrificed. Shrouded in the garb of mourning, the monarch of Persia dismissed all pleasure from his court; and, during the rest of his life, could not be known by his attire from the meanest of his subjects.