This time the Emperor of Persia was more enraged against the queen
than before, and she had felt the effects of his anger, as the grand
vizier's remonstrances had not prevailed.
The next year the queen gave birth to a princess, which innocent babe
underwent the same fate as the princes her brothers; for the two
sisters, being determined not to desist from their detestable schemes
till they had seen the queen their younger sister at least cast off,
turned out, and humbled, exposed this infant also on the canal. But
the princess, as had been the two princes her brothers, preserved from
death by the compassion and charity of the intendant of the gardens.
To this inhumanity the two sisters added a lie and deceit, as before.
They procured a piece of wood, of which they said the queen had been
delivered.
Khoonoo-shah could no longer contain himself at this third
disappointment. He ordered a small shed to be built near the chief
mosque, and the queen to be confined in it, so that she might be
subjected to the scorn of those who passed by; which usage, as she did
not deserve it, she bore with a patient resignation that excited the
admiration as well as compassion of those who judged of things better
than the vulgar.
The two princes and the princess were in the meantime nursed and
brought up by the intendant of the gardens and his wife with all the
tenderness of a father and mother; and as they advanced in age, they
all showed marks of superior dignity, by a certain air which could
only belong to exalted birth.
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