I heard from good authority that the death of the Emir Nasrullah was solely owing to a paroxysm of rage at the constant ill success that attended his campaigns against Khokand, and the unprecedented obstinacy with which the city of Sheri-Sebz [Footnote 142] resisted, for although he had taken the field thirty times against it, and had been then besieging it six months, it was all without effect. Upon this occasion his adversary was a certain Veliname, whose sister he had married to obtain by the connection a faithful vassal in the brother of his wife. Now it happened that the news of the capture reached the Emir when on his deathbed; although half senseless, the tyrant ordered his rebel brother-in-law to be put to death with all his children. But as circumstances prevented him from feasting his eyes with that spectacle of blood, in the evening, a few hours before his death, he summoned to his presence his wife, the sister of Veliname; the unhappy woman, who had borne him two children, trembled, but the dying Emir was not softened--she was executed close to his couch, and the abominable tyrant breathed his last breath with his glazing eye fixed upon the gushing blood of the sister of his detested enemy. [Footnote 142: Sheri-Sebz, previously named Kesh, is the native city of Timour, and renowned for the warlike character of its inhabitants.] {394} B. THE WAR BETWEEN BOKHARA AND KHOKAND WAGED BY THE EMIR MOZAFFAR-ED-DIN. In the meantime affairs in Khokand had taken a different turn. Musselman Kul had been put to death, and in his place Khudayar Khan had been raised to the 'white felt.' At his first accession, the latter showed great ardour and activity. He was engaged victoriously in several combats with the Russians, who were pressing on from the Jaxartes. Whilst he was thus occupied on the frontiers, Mollah Khan was nominated Khan in his capital; but as he had only inconsiderable forces to oppose to those of his rival, he thought it better to fly to Bokhara, and seek the aid of the Emir Mozaffar-ed-din for the recovery of his throne. This prince, immediately after the death of his father, besieged the city Sheri-Sebz, which, in spite of the vengeance of which it had already been the object, and the blood that had flowed there, was again in open revolt. He was before the walls of Tchiragtchi, a stronghold belonging to Sheri-Sebz, when the intelligence reached him that the governor of Oratepe, a native of Sheri-Sebz, had allied himself with the Khokandi, and that Mollah Khan was already marching at their head against Djizzak.