Tarikh-i Iradat Khan 2.1.6

2.1.6

The day following, suddenly, before morning prayer, the march for battle was sounded, and the Prince, completely armed, mounted the elephant which he always rode in the day of battle. I speeded to attend him. He had moved some distance from the tents before I came up. I found him with an angry countenance, uttering contemptuous exclamations and reproachful terms of Zü-l fikār Khān as deceiver, traitor, false wretch and the like, to some servile attendants round his elephant. * * In the difference between A'zam Shāh and his son Bedār Bakht, justice was on the side of the father; for Bedār Bakht was rival to his father, and waited opportunity to dethrone him. As for me, I was never in the service of A'zam Shāh, nor had ever made him professions of duty, being wholly devoted to his son. Being alone with Bedār Bakht one night, he suddenly threw his arms about my neck, and holding down his head upon my breast said, "If a sovereign and parent seeks the life of a son, and that son is truly informed of his intention, how should he act in self-defence? Have you a precedent for it?" I replied, "Such a question is unnecessary. The behaviour of your grandfather to his father is sufficient precedent; and sovereigns are forced to expedients which are not justifiable in other men." Conversation of this sort often passed between us; and one evening he asked me how he might gain an opportunity of seizing his father. I replied, "An opportunity will offer thus.