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THE assassins of Aga Mahomed Khan had possessed themselves of the two famous diamonds, the Taj-Mah, and the Derya-i-Noor, and of the other royal jewels, which they handed over to Sadek Khan Shekaki. That general being thus the master of one of the chief roads to power in Persia, set out, on the breaking up of the camp at Sheeshah, in pursuit of the dispersed bodies of men who were proceeding towards Tehran. An Oriental army, on the death of its chief, becomes like a rope of sand, and Sadek Khan found no resistance to his own compact division, which he was soon able to increase to the number of fifteen thousand men. This aspiring general seems then to have begun to assume the attributes of royal power. He appointed his eldest brother