86	THE KOH-I-NUR.
	ness. The father was in despair, and sent him down the Ganges one hundred miles to Agra in hopes of benefiting him, but apparently to no purpose. A man of great piety was appealed to for his opinion, and he declared that in such cases the Almighty sometimes deigned to receive a man's most valuable possession as a ransom for the life of his friend. Baber declared, that next to the life of Humayun, his own was what he held most precious in the world, and that he would offer it up as a sacrifice. His courtiers, aghast at the purport of such a vow, begged him to offer up instead " that great diamond taken at Agra," and reputed to be the most val­uable thing on earth. But the Koh-i-nur, almost priceless as it was, Baber esteemed at a lower figure than his own existence. The self-devoted emperor walked thrice around the bed of his son, saying aloud : " I have borne it away, I have borne it away." Immediately thereafter he was observed to sink into illness, while Humayun as steadily regained