my helm. Whether he did not recognize me because of change wrought by cold and snow, Or whether because of the flurry of the fight, though I shouted " Hal Dost ! hai Dost! " and though Ahmad-i-yusuf also shouted, he, without a " God forbid!" brought down his sword on my unprotected arm. Only by God's grace can it have been that not a hairbreadth of harm was done to me.
If a sword shook the Earth from her place, Not a vein would it cut till God wills.
It was through the virtue of a prayer I had repeated that the
Great God averted this danger and turned this evil aside. That
prayer was as follows :
" O my God ! Thou art my Creator; except Thee there is no God. On Thee do I repose my trust; Thou art the Lord of the mighty throne. What God wills comes to pass ; and what he does not will comes not to pass ; and there is no power or strength but through the high and exalted God ; and, of a truth, in all things God is almighty ; and verily He comprehends all things by his knowledge, and has taken account of everything. O my Creator ! as I sincerely trust in Thee, do Thou seize by the forelock all evil proceeding from within myself, and all evil coming from without, and all evil proceeding from every man who can be the occasion of evil, and all such evil as can proceed from any living thing, and remove them far from me ; since, of a truth, Thou art the Lord of the exalted throne !" '
On leaving that garden we went to Muh. Husain Mlrza's quarters in the Bagh-i-bihisht, but he had fled and gone off to hide himself. Seven or eight men stood in a breach of the garden-wall ; I spurred at them ; they could not stand ; they fled ; I got up with them and cut at one with my sword ; he rolled over in such a way that I fancied his head was off, passed on and went away ; it seems he was Mirza Khan's foster-brother, Tulik Kukuldash and that my sword fell on his shoulder.
At the gate of Muh. Husain Mirza's quarters, a Mughul I recognized for one of my own servants, drew his bow and aimed at my face from a place on the roof as near me as a gate-ward stands to a Gate. People on all sides shouted, " Hai! hai! it is the Padshah." He changed his aim, shot off his arrow and ran away. The affair was beyond the shooting of arrows! His Mirza, his leaders, had run away or been taken; why was he shooting ?
1 This prayer is composed of extracts from the Qoran (Minis, i, 454 note); it is reproduced as it stands in Mr. Erskine's wording (p. 216).
