386 A HISTORY OF PERSIA. The zealots of the new religion then betook themselves to the adjoining province of Kerman. The followers of the Bab looked upon the Ameer-i- Nizain, by whose orders their chief was kept in prison, as an enemy to the faith, whom it was lawful, and even proper, to slay. A conspiracy was accordingly organized for the purpose of taking the life of the Minister ; but the plot was discovered ere it was ripe for execution, and the conspirators were seized. Seven of them were condemned to suffer death, and the occasion of their execution was taken advantage of for intro- ducing the custom of conducting capital punishments openly at Tehran. Previously to this time it had been usual to cause condemned criminals to be strangled before the Shah. On one occasion, when the representative of Kussia at the Persian court was waiting to be sum- moned to the presence of the king, he was alarmed by hearing loud cries in his immediate neighbourhood in the palace garden, and as he was proceeding to the audience chamber, he encountered a number of executioners dragging along the still-palpitating bodies of some men who had been strangled. The prince was shocked beyond measure, and he was, with reason, offended at the indignity which had been offered to him in his being summoned to the royal presence at such a moment ; he, therefore, expressed in strong terms to the Shah and to his Minister, his opinion as to the barbarousness of the usage by which executions were conducted before the eyes of the sovereign. The Ameer-i-Nizam fully concurred in the opinion of the Russian Minister on this subject, and he accordingly at once determined to put a stop to the practice complained of. It was feared, how-
