Mereddin Shah, the successor of the indolent
Mohammed Shah, after a successful campaign
against the insurgents who disturbed the
beginning of his reign, determined to crush the
Bâbys. Orders were given to the authorities
of Mazendêran to march at once on the
followers of the Bâb, and to destroy them utterly.
The first place attacked was the fortress which
Hosseïn had erected in a place called the
Pilgrimage of the Sheikh Tebersy, and which
contained a garrison of two thousand men,
furnished with provisions and with all the means
of resisting a siege of some duration. M. Gobineau
says that three small armies, under the
command of one of the best Persian generals,
successively assailed the walls of the fortress,
and were beaten off with great loss. The
government felt that it must put forth all
its strength if it wished to crush the new
sectaries.

A fourth expedition, consisting of a much
larger number of troops, was sent against the
Bâbys, who now had to endure the miseries of
a protracted siege. Their provisions were soon
exhausted, and they barely contrived to
sustain life by eating the flesh of the few horses
which were killed in battle, and by feeding on
the bark of trees, and on the scanty grass
which grew in the ditches of the fortress. For
four months they had to seek shelter in holes
which they dug behind the ruins of the
fortress which was set on fire by their opponents,
and whence they had to rush at any moment
to repel the constant attacks of the besiegers.
Their chief was killed in their last final
struggle, and there only remained two
hundred and fourteen dying persons, including
many women, who in vain tried to assuage
the pangs of hunger by chewing the leather of
their belts, and of the scabbards of their sabres.
They had attempted to make flour by grinding
the bones of the dead. Reduced to the last
extremity, they resolved to capitulate on condition
of their lives being spared; but the leaders of
the royal army, regardless of their word,
caused them to be put to death with horrible
torture. In the bodies of many of them was found
raw grass on which they had made their last
meal. This disaster did not prevent the Bâbys
from making progress in other parts of Persia,
and their greatest success was at Zendjân,
where, however, a most terrible trial awaited
them, and where, in a dreadful struggle, not
less sanguinary than that at the fortress of the
Sheikh Tebersy, Bâbysm was to lose its most
influential leaders.

At Zendjân, Mohammed Ali held the same
position which Hosseïn had held in the
Khorassan; he had gathered fifteen thousand men
around him, and in his first encounters with
the royal troops he had driven back forces
twice as large as his own. It seemed as if the
Bâbys would now have succeeded in establishing
their republic, but they were overwhelmed by
the superior numbers of their enemies, and
Zendjân fell after a most gallant and protracted
resistance. Mohammed Ali, like Hosseïn, fell
in battle at the head of his troops, and the
few who survived were caught in the same
trap as those who capitulated at the fortress of
Sheikh Tebersy. They were promised their
lives, but were treacherously put to death or
carried to Teheran to undergo torture at the
hands of their victors

The Shah now thought that he could put an
end to Bâbysm by the death of its founder,
forgetting that nothing could give greater
strength to the religion he had founded than
his martyrdom. After the capture of Zendjân,
the Bâb was taken to the citadel of Tebriz.
He continued quietly to work, to study, and
to pray; his gentleness and his courage
surprised his enemies; he was loaded with chains,
and dragged through the streets and bazaars
of Tebriz; he was pelted with mud and struck
in the face, without giving vent to a single
murmur. Two of his disciples who had shared
his captivity were chained with him. One
of them, Seyd Hosseïn, being informed that
he might obtain pardon by insulting him,
suddenly turned round and cursed him,
spitting in his face; but even this last outrage did
not move the Bâb from his resignation. He
was suspended by ropes from the ramparts of
Tebriz, and a troop of soldiers ordered to
shoot him, but he escaped as if by a miracle,
the shot only cutting the ropes without
wounding him, and the soldiers cut him to
pieces with their swords. His only consolation
was to hear the disciple who had remained
faithful to him, ask him as he was on the point
of death, "Master, art thou satisfied with me?"

Of the leaders of Bâbysm, Gourret-oul-
Ayn, "the Consolation of the Eyes," was now
the sole survivor; she had not long to wait
before she also suffered the same fate as her
master. A general proscription was decreed
against the Bâbys; to be a follower of the
Bâb was to be declared guilty of high treason;
and thousands of innocent persons were
tortured and put to death; the victims, many of
them women and children, singing as they
were being massacred the words, "In truth we
come from God and we return to God: in
truth we belong to God and we return to
Him." Gourret-oul-Ayn was seized by
Mahmoud Khan, but treated with great respect;
and, whether from admiration for her beauty
and her virtue, or out of fear of the popular
favour on her side, she was promised life and
liberty on condition of denying the faith to
which she belonged. Mahmoud Khan came
back one day from the royal camp, and told her
that he had good news for her. "You will be
taken to Niaveran, and they will ask you if
you are one of the Bâbys; all you have to say
is 'No,' and no one will molest you."Her
answer was, "You are wrong, Mahmoud Khan,
you should give me a better message, but you
do not know it yourself; to-morrow you yourself
will have me burnt alive, and I shall render
a fitting testimony to God and to His Eternal
Highness." Mahmoud could not believe that
she would not save her life, and again and
again he begged her to reflect. She said she
scorned to preserve for a few days longer a