"Has no one fired at you?" I asked him, seeing that he was within easy
range of the shore and even of those high cliffs.
"Not a soul," he told me. "I've not seen a man, woman, or child these
five days. Just look at those palm trees!" pointing in the direction
where Bungi village lay. "They seem to have changed colour: they're
browner than they were; and we cannot see anyone moving about among the
sand-hills, not even from the top of the mast. I can't make it out."
I had to tell him the yarn of last night's brilliant little battle with
the paraffin tin, and left him and his crew intensely amused.
When I went back to the _Bunder Abbas_ I climbed her mast (much higher
it was than the cutter's masts), and through my glasses very carefully
searched the flats behind those sand-hills. Not a single living, moving
thing did I see, although I watched for quite a quarter of an hour.
I sent Jaffa up to the masthead, and he came down puzzled, wanting me to
land him so that he could find out what had happened.
He smiled when I suggested danger. "You wait, sir," he said, and
disappeared down below.
My chum began making a signal to me, asking if I could spare any
matches, so I forgot about Jaffa until, going back to the cabin, I came
across him rigged out as a coast Persian or Baluchi--I didn't know
anything of the different tribes, and I don't now--a regular low-caste,
unkempt, miserable creature, dirtier than the dirtiest. The only thing
remaining of the immaculate Jaffa was his dignified smile.
"You send me shore, sir, when dark comes. I go Bungi; find out things;
come back to-morrow night--same time."
Mr. Scarlett told me that no self-respecting Afghan would waste a
cartridge or blunt a knife on him in that rig, and that he would run
very little risk; so, after sunset, and before the moon rose, I took him
ashore myself in the dinghy, feeling rather ashamed to let him disappear
behind the sand-hills alone, and promising to be there for him the next
night.
At sunrise next morning, just as we were preparing to go to sea for the
day, he was seen strolling calmly over the sand-hills, not even deigning
to wave his arms to attract attention. One thing was certain: he could
not be in any danger.
I stopped heaving in the cable, lowered the dinghy, and pulled ashore
myself, jolly glad to get some exercise.
"What's the news?" I called out, as the dinghy took the ground.
"Bungi all gone--houses burnt--men and old women lying all
round--killed--no one else there--no young women--no children--only dogs
and some goats--no Baluchis--no camels--no Afghans--all nothing."
"What's the meaning of that?" I asked in horror and astonishment.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Afghan take revenge--lose many fighting men--cannot have rifles so take
young women and children--take them to mountains--come and see."
I was only too keen to go, and followed him over those same sand-hills
from behind which the Afghans had fired at Popple Opstein that horrid
Sunday morning. We walked nearly a mile across the sandy wastes--very
hot they were to my bare feet--and as we neared the clumps of palm trees
which showed where Bungi had stood I saw why they had changed their
colour--nearly all had been scorched by the heat from the burning
thatched roofs. Their big leaves, red and yellow and black, hung low,
mournfully.
The whole village was destroyed and the scene was too horrible to
describe, but I saw enough to know that Jaffa was right.
Some half-jackal half-wolf dogs went yelping away when we disturbed
them; nothing else lived.
The cruel Afghans had not even been satisfied with this. It was plain
that they had driven their herd of camels up and down the patches of
cultivated ground until not a trace of them existed. Jaffa explained
this, and pointed out the innumerable hoof-marks.
The one well was heaped with dead bodies.
He said, in his quaint way, that that was a proof that "the Afghans had
been very angry"!
Then he took me out of the village and showed me the broad track of
camel marks leading across the ford towards the mountains.
The sooner the captain of the _Intrepid_ knew of this the better; so
back to the dinghy and the _Bunder Abbas_ we went. I signalled across
to tell Popple Opstein (we now knew why he had not been fired at) and
went to sea, steaming down to Kuh-i-Mubarak. The shamel was still
blowing strongly, so Evans was taking shelter in the creek close to the
site of the "battle of the paraffin can". As we passed him I shouted
out to tell him the news, and that I was going to find out whether Sudab
had met the same fate.
I steamed up until the lagoon opened out and the water became too
shallow to go farther. Then, landing with Jaffa, Webster, the corporal
of marines, and two privates, all armed, we advanced very cautiously
inland towards those palm trees under which I had seen the camels many
weeks ago. Long before we reached them we knew by the burnt leaves and
the sickening smell which pervaded everything that Sudab had met the
same fate as Bungi. Even the fishing-boats had been smashed or burnt.
We were very glad to get away from it, tramping back through the hot
sand, and meeting Evans on his way to explore on his own account. I
tried to dissuade him from going, but he was too excited to listen.
"I'm going along to find the _Intrepid_" I shouted after him.
"I'll come along too, directly the shamel has finished," he called back.
In an hour the little "_B.A._" was plunging and burying herself into a
head sea, making two knots, over the land. We went at it all the rest
of that day and all that night, sighting the _Intrepid_ next morning.
I signalled across my news, and was immediately ordered to close. It
was too rough to go alongside. I was ordered to steam to Jask with
telegrams for the Admiral and to find out if the telegraph people had
any news.
Of course, it was evident to everyone that the Afghans had given up any
idea of landing more rifles at either of these two places, so the sooner
the Admiral knew of this and the sooner we found out what fresh schemes
were under way, the better.
But I was short of coal, and it took nearly two hours to fill up from
the _Intrepid_, making fast with a hawser to her stern, and passing
small bags from her poop to our bows along a running whip--no light job
with such a nasty sea running. Then I was off again for Jask.
I looked at myself in the cracked glass inside our cabin. That scar
across my forehead still showed very plainly, and for the life of me I
could not help wondering what that little yellow-haired lady would say
when she saw it.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*Ugly Rumours*
At daybreak next morning we were off Jask Point, with its square white
telegraph buildings and its low sand-hills jutting out into the sea. As
the shamel was still blowing hard from the north-west I anchored to the
east'ard of the point, close to some rocks, and among a number of dhows
sheltering there.
Percy pipeclayed my shoes and helmet, laid out my last clean white suit
of uniform, and, having made myself look as smart as I could, I landed
close to the old ruined fort (or sheikh's house) and walked up towards
the telegraph buildings, meeting the political agent, in pyjamas,
smoking a cigar and looking critically at the earth breastwork and the
line of wire entanglements.
"Hallo!" he called out cheerily; "they told me you were coming in. You
people have made it hot for everybody along the coast, and no mistake!"
He did not want me to give him any news. He had already heard of the
capture of one dhow and the destruction of the other, of the terrible
losses of the Afghans, of our men being killed, and that Bungi and Sudab
had been destroyed. The Afghans had got the idea into their heads that
the poor, wretched Persian villagers had given the "show" away, so had
taken this ghastly revenge.
"You can't keep anything secret in this country," he said; "the way news
travels is simply marvellous. I even heard that an officer had been
wounded.
"Was that you?" he asked, looking at my forehead. "I heard that one of
you had been seen to fall whilst running along the beach."
I shook my head. "I did not land. It was my chum. Shot through the
calf he was. He's all right now."
"Those Afghans came along this way before they went home," he continued;
"camped round the new fort, halfway to old Jask; hanged a couple of
Persian customs people who lived in it; hanged them from the top of the
wall to show their contempt for the Persian Governor; looted it and went
away next morning with their camels and the women and children captured
in those villages. They had a great number of wounded, those you had
wounded--poor wretches!--and threatened to come along and cut our
throats later on. A few of them did actually ride up here and fire
their rifles--but that was nothing. They put down their losses--they
had more than sixty killed--and their ill luck with the gun-running
business to the telegraph cable--about right they are too--and would do
anything to destroy it and us. Before they went away they cut the land
line running along the coast to Karachi, just to give us the trouble of
repairing it."
"Aren't you rather nervous?" I asked him.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"We have twenty fellows here who can handle rifles--Eurasians and people
like that--besides Borsen and myself. The governor of Jask, too, has
fifty or sixty border police, Bedouins, whom the Afghans hate more than
they hate us, so we could rely upon them at a pinch!"
"I suppose they will not attempt to run more rifles into Bungi or
Sudab?" I said enquiringly.
"No, no! they've had enough of those two places. They'll get news across
to the Arabian coast and lie quiet for some months. Come along and have
'chota-hazri'," he said, changing the subject. "You needn't say
anything about those Afghans or about them coming along here. My wife
knows nothing about it, nor does Miss Borsen; I don't want them to
know."
He took me up to his house and sent off the telegrams for the Admiral.
The old head boy brought us tea, bread and butter, and fruit, and I
quite enjoyed myself, except that the old gentleman was wearing a
yellow-silk turban, and every time he came out on the veranda it caught
my eye, and I thought he was Miss Borsen.
However, I might have spared myself the trouble of constantly turning my
head and expecting to see her, because she was not even living in that
house, but with her brother.
Afterwards, on my way down to the beach, I saw her there, a slim little
figure on the shore, dressed all in white, with a big white helmet
almost covering her yellow hair, looking strangely out of place among a
motley crowd of Arabs, Persians, and Zanzibaris, loading and unloading
the dhows.
"Her brother ought not to let her come down alone," I thought angrily.
She had a camera with her, and was taking pictures of the natives and
their camels. She smiled when she saw me, and every mortal thing I had
in my head seemed to go out of it. I couldn't think of any blessed
thing to say except that it was a fine morning.
Then she laughed until I grew red and uncomfortable. It was a relief to
shout across to the "_B.A._" for the dinghy, but whilst it was coming
she made me pose for my photograph.
"I have a snapshot of your little steamboat (boat!--mind you); I must
have one of its captain too," she said, as if it was a great compliment
to be photographed by her.
If there is one thing I hate more than another it is having my
photograph taken. Especially did I hate this, because she arranged me
and rearranged me, with Griffiths in the dinghy for a background, and
all the time he was grinning at me till I felt the idiot I looked. She
never mentioned the scar on my forehead, so I took my helmet off so that
she must see it, and then all she said was: "Do put your hat on again,
and turn side face; that nasty scratch quite spoils the picture."
Hat! Nasty scratch! Spoils her picture! My word, what irritating
things girls are! I'd gone ashore wanting her to see the wound, perhaps
to say something nice about it, and hoping that she would treat me, for
once, as though I were a man; and she'd made me cover it up in order not
to spoil her picture, and made me stand there, like a baby, whilst she
took the snapshot.
I felt very irritated, and when she said: "Let me come aboard and
photograph that dear Mr. Scarlett," I felt more annoyed than ever. At
that time of the morning the _Bunder Abbas_ wasn't clean and tidy, so I
answered rather cuttingly that I'd send the gunner ashore to be
photographed, and suggested that perhaps she'd better wait until her
brother or the political agent's wife could bring her on board some
other time.
She smiled again her mocking smile, and, curtsying derisively, watched
me clambering clumsily into the dinghy, trying not to wet my feet. With
her eyes on me I felt like an elephant trying to get into a canoe, and
one of my feet slipped and went into the water. That buckskin shoe was
pretty well spoiled.
When Griffiths shoved off--still grinning the brute was--I looked back
to salute; but she was already walking away from the beach and did not
turn her head.
"She's offended now," I thought. "Serve her jolly well right! Fancy
asking herself aboard like that; no English girl would have dreamt of
doing such a thing!"
However, I was not really in the least pleased, and Mr. Scarlett soon
found out that I was in a pretty bad temper.
Commander Duckworth had ordered me to lie at Jask until replies to his
telegrams had been received from the Admiral, so there I had to
stay--possibly for days.
The morning went by very slowly. I was in a thoroughly bad temper, and
didn't care a "buttered biscuit" whether the six-pounder's recoil
springs wanted adjusting or not; and when the lascar first-driver
reported that the packing in the high-pressure piston-rod gland was not
as tight as it should be, dragging me down below to see it, I cursed him
till he salaamed a hundred times a minute to appease me. Moore, too,
reported Ellis again for giving him "lip", and went away "with a flea in
his ear".
I could not get the idea out of my head that those Afghans would come
back and attack the place. Those wire entanglements and earthworks
looked such puny things to keep back those fierce chaps who had faced
our Maxims and six-pounder near Bungi, that if they really meant
business, fifty rifles would not keep them out.
It was such hard luck on those two women. The political agent and
Borsen did not count. They'd gone into the job with their eyes open,
but the women--well, that was different. They should never have been
allowed to come to this desolate, exposed, out-of-the-way spot, on the
very edge of civilization.
Those mountains, too, were only twenty miles away; the Afghans could
swoop down from them in a night, appear as unexpectedly as a vulture,
get between the telegraph station and old Jask, with its fifty Bedouin
border police, and cut it off entirely.
I sent for Jaffa and asked him what kind of fellows these border police
were. He shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that they were
useless, and volunteered to go to Jask and find out, in the bazaars,
what news there was. I let him go, and he borrowed a camel from a
friend on the beach and rode away inland, his black lambskin fez
disappearing among the palms surrounding the ruined sheikh's house.
That afternoon Mr. Scarlett and I enjoyed the luxury of a thoroughly
good sleep, lying back in our canvas chairs under the awning outside our
cabin until Percy woke us for afternoon tea--tinned milk, bread (stale)
buttered with liquid tinned butter, rancid at that.
There was a little sandy cove among the rocks close alongside, so I sent
the whole crew ashore there, natives and all. They were soon enjoying
themselves to their hearts' content, bathing and skylarking, scrubbing
their clothes, drying them on the hot sand, and having a thoroughly good
time.
"I'm hanged if I'm going to land at Jask again," I said to myself; but I
did go, bawling ashore for someone to bring off the dinghy, and wearing
my one respectable flannel suit of "plain clothes"--the very first time
I had worn "plain clothes" since joining the _Bunder Abbas_.
I left Mr. Scarlett in charge; he never wanted to go ashore. He said,
quite openly, that he was afraid of meeting Jassim, and felt sure that
he would do so sooner or later. He was not a man one could argue with.
Once he had made up his mind that something gloomy was going to happen
he'd stick to it, and when it didn't happen he would be more certain
that something worse still would take its place. This silly business
about Jassim and the bracelet was, of course, at the bottom of it all.
It seemed so absolutely childish for him to imagine that he would meet
the man, or that anyone would remember the beastly thing, after all
these years, to say nothing of the fact that whatever poison was left in
the fangs after they had bitten those two could not possibly have
retained its powers, that I lost patience with him.
I landed, but never intended going near the telegraph station, not by a
long chalk. I did not want to be treated like a child by Miss
Borsen--you bet I did not--so I wandered off to explore the ruins of
that sheikh's house or fort among the palm trees.
It was a great square building with a tower at one corner, built up of
red sandy bricks, all rounded by age, and the mortar, or whatever it was
which bound them together, so friable and crumbling that I could loosen
a brick with the end of a stick in no time. An entrance under the tower
(from which the door had long since disappeared) led into a courtyard
covered with rubbish, and all round it were the remains of
dwelling-rooms, storehouses, and stables. Some still had roofs to them.
A great high wall with crumbling battlements and platforms seemed to
shut out every trace of breeze and shut in every ray of heat. The place
was like an enormous oven. I climbed up some rough brick steps leading
towards the battlements and base of the tower and had a good view over
the surrounding country.
Beyond a few miserable palm trees was the open narrow piece of flat
ground forming the neck of the peninsula. It gradually rose towards the
telegraph buildings, and about halfway between--something like three
hundred yards from where I stood---were the line of wire entanglements
and the earth breastwork, stretching right across from the rocks under
which the _Bunder Abbas_ was anchored to the shore on the other side,
where the shamel was still driving white breakers up the beach with a
continuous roar.
Still higher was that strong, loopholed wall surrounding the buildings
themselves.
Away to the east'ard ran the telegraph line on its bare steel poles: the
line which ran along the coast to Karachi, and which the Afghans had cut
only a few days ago. I could follow the line of telegraph posts till
they dwindled into "nothing", and felt very thankful that it was not my
job to go along that appallingly lonely coast to repair damages.
I suppose I was seen from the telegraph station, for a servant came
running down the peninsula, came into the middle of the courtyard, and
I'm hanged if I didn't get an invitation to tea with the political
agent's wife.
I climbed down and followed him, pretending that I was unwilling to go,
and grumbling to myself that if I did meet Miss Borsen we should
probably have a row. In half an hour I found myself playing tennis with
a borrowed racket and borrowed shoes, which flopped about like canoes on
my feet, with Miss Borsen playing opposite me, and beating me time after
time with her low drives along the side lines. She seemed to take a
positive joy in seeing me falling over my own feet in my attempts to
return balls much too good for me. I hate being beaten at any game,
especially by a woman, so that did not improve my temper.
"What about your gunner?" the political agent said, when at last I was
allowed to "cool off" out of range of that little torturer's eyes.
"Doesn't he ever come ashore?"
This made me think of Jassim, the bracelet, and of snake poisons.
"Do you know anything about poisons?" I asked. "How long do you suppose
a cobra's poison would remain deadly?"
"In a dead cobra, do you mean? I don't know; but I should not care to
keep a dried one without having his poison gland removed."
"No," I said. "If you extracted the poison and kept it in a--a bottle,
for instance."
"Not for long, I should imagine," he answered; and then I was fairly
startled, for he began to tell me the story of the very cobra bracelet
on Mr. Scarlett's arm. I did my best to appear as if this was all quite
unknown to me, for fear he should guess that I knew something about it,
and drag more information from me than Mr. Scarlett would care I should
tell.
"I've never seen it," he went on, quite unsuspiciously; "but an old
friend of mine, skipper of a tramp steamer doing a queer business in the
Gulf many years ago, saw it once, and told me that he'd never seen such
a beautiful piece of workmanship. It will turn up some day at Christie's
or at some other curio dealer's in London, I expect, and I'm rather
sorry for whoever buys it. If he is known to possess it the news will
come along out here, and I don't mind saying that it will disappear
again within six months. The present Khan of Khamia, the real owner, is
not the wealthy chap some of the former khans were, but he offers a
reward every three months in the bazaars of every town on both sides of
the Gulf--a reward of thirty thousand rupees--to whoever brings back the
'twin death', as it is called. That's two thousand pounds, and there's
not an Arab born yet who wouldn't give his body to earn that, to say
nothing about his being certain of Paradise if he helped to restore it
to its rightful owners."
I mopped my perspiring face often enough to prevent him noticing how his
confirmation of Mr. Scarlett's yarn had stirred me, and was quite glad
to be called away to play tennis.
I played worse than ever, and Miss Borsen grew more provokingly
successful.
After all my determination never to go near her again, I found myself
weakly consenting to stay to dinner. The political agent rigged me out
in clothes of his own, and the meal was a most delightful change after
"pigging it" on board the "_B.A._" for six weeks on tinned grub, with
only the gunner's black-bearded, morose face in front of me. After such
fare as we had had this dinner was luxury, but still more of a luxury
than the food was the daintily decorated table with its soft
candlelight.
It would have been absolutely enjoyable if Miss Borsen had not been
there too. She had a most irritating effect on me. Whether she
intended it or not she always seemed to be "pulling my leg", and I
instinctively "bristled up" and wanted to get the upper hand, and put
her in her proper place as a very dainty little lady who should listen,
very respectfully, whilst I talked.
I tried to tell them about being carried away to sea in that dhow; but
when I came to the part where I climbed along the struggling yard,
instead of looking impressed, she merely giggled: "I wish I'd been
there; you must have looked like a frog." This put me "off" telling any
more yarns, and made me so annoyed with her that I disagreed with
everything she said.
Every time I did so she came off best in the argument, in spite of not
speaking English very fluently.
By the end of that dinner I felt that I wanted to pick her up--I could
have done so with one hand--and give her a thoroughly good shaking, just
to make her realize how strong I was, and that though she could defeat
me with her clever little tongue, she was, at any rate, helpless
physically.
It was a most gloriously cool night, with millions of stars shining, and
they all walked down to the beach to see me go aboard. We came to a
dark patch close to the beach, where the tide sometimes washed across,
and when the political agent called out: "Be careful of your feet; it's
swampy," the temptation was too great. I whisked little Miss Borsen off
her feet, and, before she had time to make more than an angry protest,
had carried her twenty paces across it and set her down on the dry sand.
She never spoke a single word after that, and I chuckled to think that,
at last, I had stopped her tormenting little tongue. I would try that
dodge again if necessary.
I hailed the "_B.A._"; the dinghy came ashore for me, and off to my
launch I went, shouting good-night to them all. My little tormentor's
voice was not among the chorus of "good-nights" shouted back. She still
had her tongue tied.
Mr. Scarlett was waiting up for me, looking more saturnine than ever.
His dark eyes gleamed maliciously when I came into the light of the
lamp, because a little blue-velvet bow had caught in a button of my
coat. It was one she had worn, and I got red, looked an ass, and
untwisted it. I kept it, too, as a trophy of the first victory I had
won.
"Brute force is better than brains--sometimes," I chuckled to myself.
"Jaffa come back?" I asked.
Mr. Scarlett shook his head, and I felt rather nervous about him,
although that was quite unnecessary, because he arrived next morning,
safe and sound, but with very little definite information. The
townspeople in Old Jask were in a state of alarm at the threats of the
hill tribes, and the Khan or Mir had called in the border police from
outlying villages. He had actually served out ammunition to them--a
thing he did not often do for fear that they themselves would plunder
Jask. I went up to see the political agent to tell him of this. He
knew it already, but it was a good enough excuse to go, for I wanted to
know if I had offended Miss Borsen and apologize if I had done so.
However, I did not see her; and although the replies to those telegrams
did not come from the Admiral for another four days, and I went there
every day, I never did see her. There was always some excuse: that she
had a headache, or was resting; but it was plain enough that I had
mortally offended her, and my victory seemed much more like a defeat.
So it was quite a relief when the cipher telegrams did arrive, and when
the "_B.A._" steamed away north-west again, to look for the _Intrepid_.
These telegrams ordered Commander Duckworth to proceed immediately to
Muscat. He wasted no time in picking up the two cutters and departing,
leaving me to cruise up and down that same strip of coast for another
fortnight, without seeing a sail--until, in fact, I had to run across to
Muscat myself, for coal and water.
I found the _Intrepid_ there anchored under the black cliffs and the old
fort, and hoped to get ashore, but was ordered to fill up as quickly as
possible and to cruise off a place called Jeb, about forty miles to the
north'ard, where those rifles were originally reported to have been
stowed. A miserable native chap, with a grudge to repay, had come along
from there to say that a dhow was filling up with rifles for the Makran
coast. So off I had to go.
This coast was entirely different from the one I had just left.
Stupendous barren mountains towered up to the sky; their ridges and
shoulders, sweeping down to the sea, ended abruptly in stupendous cliffs
whose feet were eaten away by the continual beating of the south-west
monsoon waves, until they looked as if they must soon topple over.
Forbidding-looking inlets here and there made very comfortable shelter
to lie in for a few hours, though I could not stay in them for long
without being "sniped". My orders were not to go within five hundred
yards of any inhabited place, because the people along the coast were so
well armed, and even in these desolate inlets they would discover me,
after a very short time, and compel me to go out into the heavy seas
again.
Thank goodness, they were execrable shots!
Luck was not in our way, for when we returned to Muscat we found that
the _Intrepid_ herself had captured that dhow, and all we had to do was
to tow it out and burn it--not a very heroic task.
The next fortnight was spent still farther to the north'ard. Sixty
miles of coast we had to examine, and we started from the farthest
point, gradually working along towards Muscat. Wherever there was a gap
in the cliffs, or a valley running down to the sea, in we would go and
be sure to find a village, perhaps a dozen huts, perhaps fifty, nestling
under a few date-palm trees or along the banks of a stream. The natives
(fishermen, for the most part, owning perhaps a few sheep or goats,
which they guarded day and night from wolves and jackals) were an
inoffensive, absolutely ignorant lot of people. Even Jaffa could make
very little out of them except that they lived in perpetual fear of
Bedouins or other raiding Arab tribes and of wild animals. They did not
want money--they did not seem to know the use of it--and for a few dates
and a few pounds of rice--especially rice--we could get enough fish for
the whole crew.
I had to search all these villages for concealed arms. It was supposed
that the Arabs--Bedouins or whoever they were--knowing that it was
useless to try to send any more rifles away from Jeb, would take them
farther up the coast in caravans, distributing them in small numbers
among these villages and compelling the natives to store them in their
huts, until dhows should come along and take them away.
However, we found nothing whatever except a few old muzzle-loaders,
dating from the year "one".
There was such an entire absence of danger that whilst a couple of
bluejackets or marines, under Moore, Ellis, or Webster, went from hut to
hut, searching, I would take the head man of the village away up the
slopes of the mountains and try to get a shot at a wild goat. I managed
to bag one or two, and when, one day, at some wretched place which I
don't believe possessed a name, I shot a leopard (I had only a shotgun
with me), breaking its hindlegs so that it could not get away and the
natives could surround it and beat it to death, I was looked upon as the
saviour of the village. They filled the dinghy with fish, and actually
brought along a sheep. Jaffa and Mr. Scarlett said it was a sheep; I
thought it was a goat; and I'm hanged if it was possible to tell, by
eating it, which it was.
The news of my shooting the leopard spread along the coast, and whereas,
previously, the villagers had been half-frightened out of their lives
when the "_B.A._" appeared, flying hurriedly with their women and
children, goats and sheep, to the mountains, now, when we anchored off a
village, the beach would often be lined with people to welcome us and
implore me to go and shoot leopards or jackals.
On the last day of this cruise, the last morning before we had to return
to Muscat for more coal and food, I took the _Bunder Abbas_ into a most
marvellous gorge in the cliffs. Just imagine enormous, perpendicular,
sea-worn cliffs, eight hundred feet high, with the south-west monsoon
swell roaring at their feet, and a cleft, not fifty yards across, cut
straight down through them, as by some enormous knife.
Into this the "_B.A._" shoved her nose, twisted and turned, with those
huge walls on either side, until long after the sea had disappeared and
the booming of the breaking swell had ceased. Gradually the walls
trended downwards, until a last turn disclosed an inland basin, quite a
mile long and nearly as broad. Mangrove trees came down all round it
nearly to the water's edge; what looked like rich grass-land ran up the
slopes of the mountains until it faded among the gaunt bare rock; and at
one place, where a little stream opened, there was quite a large cluster
of huts, with many fishing-boats drawn up on the beach in front of them.
I anchored in front of this village--marked on the chart as Kalat al
Abeid--lowered the dinghy, and pulled ashore, with Jaffa to interpret,
and the three marines (armed with rifles) to do the usual searching.
I took my shot-gun, but the head-man--a tall, wizened, old chap with a
scarlet sash round his waist and a scarlet turban on his head--as soon
as he saw it, shook his head, patted one of the marine's rifles, and
jabbered away excitedly to Jaffa, pointing up to the mountains.
Jaffa interpreted: "He say plenty leopard in mountain--come down every
night--kill sheep and goats--two nights ago killed a woman. Want you
get rifle from ship--go shoot them--want all men go--kill many
leopard--he show you where they sleep in daytime."
"Right oh, old cock!" I said, sent the dinghy back for another rifle,
and hurried away the marines and Jaffa to get their searching done.
The villagers were so eager for us to go shooting that they had actually
stripped their huts of everything movable, bringing the things outside,
so that all we had to do was to stoop down through the low doorway, see
that the floor was bare and had not been disturbed lately (no rifles
buried there), then back out again and search the next.
It was the quaintest sight in the world to see the excited
children--little brown naked urchins--staggering out with big clay
cooking utensils and brass cooking pots as big as themselves, as happy
as the day was long at this new kind of game.
One or two huts were so dark inside that we could not see; but the
natives tore away some of the palm-leaf roof to let in light, in order
that nothing should delay us.
Griffiths came back with the dinghy and my rifle, bringing a spare one
on the chance that I would let him have a day's sport too. I let him
come, and away inland we started, the head-man, Jaffa (with my
shot-gun), and myself leading, followed by Webster, his two marines, and
Griffiths, surrounded by a dirty, happy mob of natives, armed with
short, clumsy hunting spears, some only with boat's paddles. Innumerable
children followed, shrieking with delight, and a dozen or more women,
hooded so that we could only see their eyes, bearing vessels of
water--big earthenware chatties--on their heads, brought up the rear of
the expedition.
If I had had any idea whatever of treachery the fact of the women coming
along would have dispelled that. We were just as safe as if we had been
going shooting among a lot of country people in England.
Directly we had reached the limits of cultivation the children were sent
back very quickly. No leopard could have slept comfortably within a
mile of the noise they made. Then we commenced to wind up a track
towards the mountains themselves, and the nearer we came to them the
more rugged and barren they looked. Very nearly black they were in
places; great rents split whole shoulders from the main ridge; huge
masses of rock were poised on each other like vast columns, looking as
though a bird perching on them would upset them. Indeed the slope we
were ascending was so strewn with gigantic blocks of black rock that one
knew that they, at one time, must have fallen from just such columns.
The head-man began talking volubly to Jaffa, and he, turning to me,
said: "Leopards there--come down at night--go back sleep close by."