THE BABI CONSPIRACY. 409 strove to lay in a supply of bread, as a provision against the stormy future. On the following day, however, men's minds were reassured by the discharge of a salute of one hundred and ten guns, to announce the safety of the king. The priests and the persons of influence amongst the people were invited to proceed to the royal camp ; and Tehran was illuminated during several nights. The Babi conspiracy having been discovered, ten of the conspirators were at the first put to death; some of them under circumstances of the greatest cruelty. Lighted candles were inserted into the bodies of two or three of these men, and the victims, after having been allowed to linger for some time, were hewn in two by a hatchet. The requirements of the lex talionis were satisfied by the steward of the Shah, acting as his representative, blowing out the brains of one of the conspirators. Amongst those who suffered death was a young woman, the daughter of a celebrated teacher of the law, and who was considered by the Babis to be a prophetess ; on this account she had been for years detained a prisoner at Tehran. But ten victims were not enough to calm the fears of the advisers of the Shah, and a short reign of terror followed ; no one being secure against suspicion, or being denounced as a fol- lower of the Bab. If any one at this time imagined that the Shah's Ministers had any considerable amount of regard for their own dignity in the eyes of the world, the scene which now presented itself was well calculated to dispel the illusion. The prime minister, far from imitating the example set by Cicero in his orations against Catiline in taking to himself all the glory of having suppressed a dangerous conspiracy, was fearful
