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hoping to induce him to act. To reinforce his efforts, the governor also sent several appeals to the leading ‘ulamá in Shíráz, in which he gravely misrepresented Vahíd as a subversive and an enemy of Islám, and urged them to intercede on his behalf with the Prince.
The Prince on receiving all this readily granted the request. A huge force of infantry and cavalry with heavy artillery was assembled and sent to Nayrîz.
The Siege Intensifies
With the arrival of the large army of the Prince, the siege of Fort Khájih intensified. The new reinforcements dug trenches around the fort and set up barricades. As soon as this work was completed, they began firing onto the fort.
Those who were called upon to perform that task were for the most part men of advanced age, whom no one would have thought capable of bearing the brunt of so fierce a struggle. Among them was a shoemaker who, though more than ninety years of age, showed such enthusiasm and vigour as no youth could hope to exceed. The rest of the fourteen were mere lads, as yet wholly unprepared to face the perils and endure the strain which such a sally entailed. Age, however, to those heroes, whom a dauntless will and an immovable confidence in the high destiny of their Cause had wholly transformed, mattered but little. They were instructed by their leader to divide immediately after they left the cover of the fort and, raising simultaneously the cry of “Alláh-u-Akbar” to spring into the midst of the enemy.