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Here a local guide was procured to conduct the small party of faithful retainers, who did not abandon the great prince in the days of his adversity, up an even more difficult path that led north along the face of the cliff to the fateful grotto where the sovereign's father, the Emir Qurqumaz ibn Fakhreddine, had met his unhappy end, also hunted by the Turks, in the late 16th Century.
At the end of this path, no less difficult and dangerous today than it was three centuries ago, is a narrow ledge overgrown with brambles and infested with serpents, who emerged from the entrance of the gloomy cavern to sun themselves amid the limestone crevices.
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