Letter 142

, par Stewart

Usbek to Narsit in the seraglio in Isfahan


Worm that you are, you have in your hands letters containing urgent and violent orders ; the slightest delay may cost me my last hope, and you remain calm under a vain pretext !

There are horrible things happening. Perhaps half my slaves deserve to die. I send you the letter which the principal eunuch wrote to me about that before he died. If you had opened the package that is addressed to him, you would have found bloody orders in it : read these orders than, and you shall perish if you do not execute them. [1]

*** this 25th day of the moon of Chalval 1718