Storia do Mogor 64.2

64.2

On his way he met a faqlr, who offered him two apples. Highly delighted, he (Khurram) carried them off at once to the princess, and told the poor man to wait, as he had something to say. Going inside, he delivered the apples to the princess, then came back humbly and reverently to the faqlr, and said to him : 'I suspect that you are some holy man, since you have succoured me in the time of trouble. May it please you to do me the favour of telling me if that is so.' The man [119] replied that it was. They had a long conversation, and the faqlr told him many things. Among other things he said that he (Khurram) would fall ill, but on those occasions he must smell his hands. So long as they had the scent of apples, his illness would be neither dangerous nor mortal. When they ceased to smell of apples, it would be a warning that he had reached his term of life. In the end the prince asked him which of his sons would be the destroyer of his race. The faqlr answered that it would be Aurangzeb, who in those days was quite a child. This was the reason that Sultan Khurram never had any love for Aurangzeb. From this time he (Khurram) began to scoff at him (Aurangzeb), calling him the White Snake, he being fairer than all his brothers. Sometimes he resolved to kill him, but his elder sister, called Roshanara Begam, always preserved him, and God reserved him to be the chastisement of his father.