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 marched to Ispahan, where he gave out that he was going to wait upon the Shah; hoping by this tale to induce the nobles of the province to go with him in his train.

Information of these proceedings reached the royal camp as the Shah was on the point of setting out from Khoi in the direction of Sheervan and Daghestan; the news caused a change of route to be adopted, and the king returned to Tehran. On his way he was met by the blinded prisoner, Mahomed Khan of Zend, whom the Shah ordered to be handed over to some soldiers of a tribe which had suffered much at the hands of Mahomed's father. Contrary, however, to the savage Persian usage of rigorously exacting the rights of retaliation, these men thought the blind man unworthy of being despatched by their daggers, and they therefore set him at liberty. We are told that he begged his way to Bussora, displaying in his person the baneful results of blasted ambition. The young Shah must have been utterly at a loss whom to trust. On his way to Tehran he received intelligence of the defection of two of the generals in whom he had till then reposed the utmost confidence. One of these was Mahomed Veli Khan, who had put down the rebellion of Mahomed Khan, Zend, and who now espoused the cause of the Shah's rebel brother. The other was the chief, Suleiman Khan, whom the king had left in charge of the government of Azerbaeejan. This Suleiman Khan, who was the Shah's first cousin, despatched his force in the direction of Tehran, with the intention of first allowing the two brothers to fight and afterwards attacking the victor. The two brothers drew near to each other in the plain of Taraghan, and by the influence of their mother an interview was brought about between