MIRZA ZU-L-QARNAIN, A CHRISTIAN GRANDEE. 175 



their parents, and you cannot show your face before anyone. We too are very much 

 ashamed. If you are innocent, the remedy is that you speak to the King, so that, 

 knowing the truth, he may order the guilty party to be punished. If what that man 

 says is true, there is no reason why we should remain deceived ; if it is not true, there 

 is no reason why we should have in the country a man who causes so much harm 

 to his Padres, etc' Thus spoke the Armenian, and I, after telling the truth to my 

 Fathers and brothers, was much troubled and cogitabam qualis esset ista conjuratio (I 

 reflected what this conspiracy might mean) , for I did not suspect matters had come 

 to such a pass. I said, ' Give me time till the morning and the day after, for it is 

 the eve of the Feast of the Ascension. I must hear some confessions and we shall 

 recommend the matter to God, I shall come and see you. What I can tell you now 

 is that I do not belong to myself, but to the Christians. As you will, so will I. I shall 

 do what the Christians wish me to do.' We recommended the matter to the Father of 

 Mercies, asking Him to remove this trouble from us and show us what we had to do. 

 When we assembled on the above-mentioned day, it appeared ex communi consensu (to 

 all unanimously) that the evil could be remedied only by speaking to the King. We 

 resolved to do so, and our prayer those days was: %ord, if this resolution is not 

 according to Thy Most Holy Will, prevent it; if Thou art to be served thereby, favour 

 it.' The next Saturday, we went, to the palace, the Father [Fr. Anthony Machado] 

 and I, with the said Armenian, and through a son of his [of the Armenian's] we sent 

 word to the King that his father and we wished to speak to His Majesty about an im- 

 portant affair. He [Akbar] answered asking what it was, and without waiting for the 

 answer lay down to sleep. When we sent him our answer, there was no time to give it 

 him, for, on awaking, he went at once to the Mahal, or place where are the women, and 

 there he remained till night. We returned without effecting anything, yet we came 

 home at eight in the evening and went early in the morning. The next day we returned 

 late in the day, and praeter morem (against his custom) we found the King was with his 

 women. I spoke to a great favourite of his and asked him to get me admitted to the 

 King, as I had to speak to him in private about an affair of great importance to me. He 

 promised to do it, because I wished it : but that day too nothing was done. The next 

 day, the x\rmenian told me, ' My wife must go to see the Queen in the morning. She will 

 tell her that you wish to speak secretly with the King and she will tell the King. ' This 

 appeared a good plan, but the woman did not go that day, and, the next day, though 

 her husband promised she would go without fail, she did not go either." The third 

 time, the Fathers seeing that all the occasions to meet the King privately were 

 spoiled by unforeseen circumstances, concluded that it was not God's wish that 

 they should clear their own reputation before the King. Eventually, the Portuguese 

 confessed that his accusations were mere calumnies.' 



Who was this Queen ? Was she the same as the Queen we heard of in 

 1598, the childless Queen who adopted Blbl Juliana's two sons, 1 the same with 

 whom Domingo Pires' little daughter was the greater part of the year, the same 



1 Cf. Letter of Fr. Jer. Xavier, Agra, Sept. 6, 1604, foil. I2u — ly (photographic copy in my possession). The story 

 is told briefly in J.A.S.B., 1896, pp. 93-94. 2 Cf. supra, p. 132. 



