Page 88 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

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88 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

himself of his treasure, and when in answer to his inquiries
he learnt that it had been broken his rage knew no bounds.
Commanding the offending noble to be brought into his
presence he caused him to be cruelly beaten by two men
armed with great whips. After the poor wretch had
received 120 lashes from these fearful implements of i
torture he was handed over to porters to be beaten with !
small cudgels. Then, more dead than alive, he was dragged 1
out of the durbar by the heels and thrown into prison.
The following day the Emperor asked whether the
offender was, still alive, and finding that he was condemned r
i him to a life of perpetual imprisonment. One of the
royal princes, who was friendly with the minister, at this
point interceded on the man’s behalf and obtained his
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father’s reluctant permission to take charge of him.
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At the end of two months, having to some extent re­
! covered from the effects of his punishment, the degraded
minister appeared before the Emperor to appeal for pardon.
But the memory of his fault still rankled in the imperial
mind, and he would only consent to admit the culprit to
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his former position on the condition that he first produced
a dish exactly like the one which had been destroyed.
This was tantamount to a sentence of banishment for a
long period, as the only likely place in which to discover a
duplicate was China.
Quitting the Court the fallen minister started at once on
his long journey across Asia. When he had been absent
fourteen months on his strange mission news was received
at Agra that the Shah of Persia, hearing of Jehangir’s loss
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and having the exact partner of the broken dish, had for­
warded it as a present to his imperial brother, to the intense
- < gratification of the exile, who was on his way home.

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