So when Jassim came next morning I sent him away again. Not a flicker
of disappointment crossed his face, but as I watched the retreating boat
and his motionless back I could not help feeling that we had done a very
foolish thing indeed, and that trouble would certainly follow.
Not a soul stirred out of the _Bunder Abbas_ all day; there was a
strange sensation of impending trouble, and as darkness fell and the
lights of the gloomy, unruly town twinkled out, I felt an unpleasant,
gruesome feeling that we had let him go, had lost touch with him, and
should not now know when danger threatened or from where. Whether my
mind had gradually been influenced by association with Mr. Scarlett or
not, yet although I did my utmost to induce myself to believe that there
was no danger, the effort was extremely unsuccessful. Jassim now had
good reasons for revenge on both of us, and he badly needed money. If
he had turned out to be an insignificant nonentity or a mere cadging
loafer whose only trace of his former power and dignities remained in
his remembrance of them I should not have feared him; but this Jassim
was evidently a man of great influence still (you must remember that
gun-running or slave-running were then the only aristocratic occupations
the sheikhs of the various tribes indulged in), and must even now have
powerful friends scattered everywhere who would be only too glad to
assist him.
I do not mind saying that it caused me most unpleasant thought, and I
was more than ever sorry that we had rebuffed him twice already.
Luckily the _Intrepid_ came in next morning, and I was extremely pleased
to receive orders to return to Kalat al Abeid for a fortnight.
Whilst our lascars were raising steam I saw the commander going ashore
to call on the political agent, and on his way back he came aboard the
_Bunder Abbas_.
"The political agent's delighted with our haul," he said, as I saluted
him. "He's mentioning your name in his dispatches to the Indian
Government. You ought to get something out of it. You got my orders.
Well, you can go there for a fortnight; you can't be spared for longer.
Don't get into trouble. You can finish off those leopards. I killed a
couple; there are plenty more."
I thanked him very warmly, and as he was shoving off he called out:
"They're getting nervous at Jask again. Some brigands of 'sorts' from
the hills have been cutting the telegraph line and threatening to burn
the telegraph station."
"Is nothing going to be done?" I asked.
"No," he called back. "We've advised them to send away those two
ladies--two are there, I hear--but nothing else. They're always crying
'wolf', and we can't keep a ship tied to the telegraph-posts all the
time."
I had intended telling him that Jassim was in Muscat, but this news made
me forget him and spoilt my pleasure at getting away from Muscat and
being able to help my friends the villagers. It made me very
uncomfortable to think of those two fragile ladies exposed to such
dangers in those sunbaked telegraph buildings on the little promontory
of Jask.
We were not ready for sea until next morning, and that night I dreamt
that I had to rescue those two ladies, or, rather, choose which I should
rescue, and I picked up the little yellow-haired lady with the grey eyes
and tried to carry her down to the _Bunder Abbas_; but my foot wouldn't
move properly, and an Arab with a flaming-red beard and a knife in his
hand would have caught me had I not woke up.
However, if one always worried about dangers which might happen at some
uncertain future one's time would be pretty well occupied. When once we
were out at sea, and the little "_B.A._" was tumbling about with the
tail end of the south-west monsoon swell sliding under her, our cares
and troubles seemed quickly blown away. The whole crew had caught some
of yesterday's gloom, and they too were now as cheery as schoolboys.
Even Moore and Ellis--still enemies--exchanged a few friendly remarks,
and the dismal cook and his "mate" chattered to each other as they
carried on their everlasting scouring of pots and pans. Mr. Scarlett
was a different being altogether. He was his natural colour again, and I
could have sworn that he was fatter than the day before. As for Percy,
his glistening brown cheeks were split with a smile which extended from
ear to ear. He knew that there had been something wrong, that his hero
had been in some danger, and his two solemn great eyes followed Mr.
Scarlett wherever he moved. To him the gunner was the most wonderful
thing his little world held, and if you had seen him squatting in a
shady corner outside our cabin, whitening Mr. Scarlett's shoes or
helmet, daubing here and there, then waiting for the damp places to dry
in the sun, holding them up to see the effect and trying to make them
look whiter than any shoes or helmet had been before, you would have
felt a great liking for the little chap in his queer surroundings so far
from his home and people.
All that day we steamed along that tremendous coast line of cliffs, and
whenever some particularly barren rock stuck out into the sea I could
not help, for the life of me, picturing the white telegraph buildings at
Jask, and remembering the fluttering of a white handkerchief I had once
seen waving "good-bye" from the corner near the flagstaff.
"No other tune you know?" Mr. Scarlett asked me cynically, whilst we
were thoroughly enjoying the lunch Percy had furnished. "You've been
whistling and humming the same old tune for the last three hours."
I'm hanged if I'd known it at the time, but it was "Two Eyes of Grey".
Well, to know that those treacherous Afghans were threatening that
isolated telegraph station was enough to make anyone think of the little
grey-eyed lady imprisoned there.
In the afternoon we passed quite close to one of those buggalows which
had gone to Kalat al Abeid to purchase the camels, and her deck was
crowded with them. We met another as we threaded our way through the
channel cut in the cliffs, also laden with camels. She was drifting out
with the tide, and we had some difficulty in passing her.
When we anchored off the village itself, three more were half in, half
out of the water, and we could see our friends the villagers trying to
persuade more stubborn brutes to climb aboard along sloping gangways.
The head-man was along in a jiffy, bringing another sheep with him. I
hardly recognized him for a moment in a green turban and a scarlet
burnous with a flaming scarlet belt, into which he had stuck
silver-mounted daggers (the green turban I found out afterwards was the
one Jassim had lost that awful night, and I remembered that he was not
wearing it when he followed his wounded son through the gap). Across his
knees he had one of the rifles we had given him--each man in the boat
had one--and he was treating it as if it was a baby or something alive.
When he stepped on board, all smiles and friendliness, he brought it
with him, and kept on patting it affectionately, shaking a bag slung
from his shoulder by a piece of coarse string, and smiling like a big
baby when the cartridges inside it rattled.
He was vastly amusing in his new finery. He told Jaffa, for my
edification, that "men of Kalat al Abeid no fish--so much good things no
work any more--Arab trader from Muscat bring so much food--dates, rice,
cloth, beads, bracelets for women--brass cooking-pots; never want
nothing no more. No fear Bedouins--taffenk--fishenk[#]--kill them all."
[#] Rifles, cartridges.
Jaffa soon found out that, as I thought, he never bothered to keep even
a few men posted in the gap in the mountains. "It was absurd to keep
them there in the daytime: surely they could see the Bedouins coming
down from the ravine and shoot them; and as for at night, why, everyone
knew that devils and horned dragons breathing flame came and went
through that gap during the dark hours."
If he had spent the night with us up there, whilst the _Intrepid's_
shells were bursting, he might have had some foundation for his yarn.
At any rate, not a man of the village dared stay there after dark, and
it was useless work trying to chaff the old chap out of his
superstitions. He certainly had not seen any devils or horned dragons
breathing flame--no one alive had; but their fathers had told them about
them, and that was good enough for him.
"Sometimes hear big noise of wind rushing through the gap," Jaffa
interpreted, as the old man evidently tried to back his superstition
with some tangible facts.
"Well, ask him about the leopards. Tell him I want to go there and
shoot some," I told Jaffa.
He was quite willing to talk about them, but did not want to give me the
trouble of climbing all that way. He patted his rifle, pointed to those
of his men, and Jaffa explained, without a smile on his face: "The white
sea-lord shall recline in the shade of my hut whilst I and my men go and
shoot leopard--bring back plenty skins, and plenty claws to make
necklace for white sea-lord."
"But the white sea-lord jolly well wants to do the shooting himself," I
laughed, "and to-morrow too."
When this was interpreted to the old man--I must call him sheikh, now
that he was so important--he smiled, as though he thought me rather a
mad ass.
"Well, tell him I'll come ashore to-morrow an hour before sunrise, and
we'll have a great day together."
That was arranged satisfactorily, so I gave him a packet of cigarettes,
and he went ashore, still patting and fondling his rifle, to hurry up
the embarkment of the remaining camels.
*CHAPTER XII*
*Mr. Scarlett Bares his Arm*
Mr. Scarlett was in such high spirits at getting safely away from Muscat
that he declared his intention of coming shooting with me, and he did.
I left Webster, the corporal of marines, in charge of the "_B.A._", and
took Moore, the petty officer, Hartley, the lazy signal-man (who was so
fat I knew he'd sweat his soul out climbing up the mountains), and the
two marines, Jones and Gamble. Of course Jaffa came with us; we could
do nothing without our aristocratic Persian interpreter.
Early as it was, we found the shore swarming with the villagers, helping
the crews of those dhows to embark the last of the captured camels, and
making enough noise to prevent any respectable devil or horned dragon
venturing within a hundred miles of them.
When they saw us they hastily rushed back to their huts, and by the time
we had landed and found the sheikh waiting for us near his white-domed
well, they came running back--the whole crowd of them--every man with a
rifle and a bag of cartridges. At a word from the beaming sheikh they
began firing their rifles to welcome us. How it was that no one was hit
was a marvel, for they knew less about handling them than I do of a
sewing-machine.
You may bet your last dollar that I was not going shooting with that
little lot, and it took Jaffa at least a quarter of an hour of talking
before they stole away to their huts, and came sorrowfully back without
their rifles, but with much more useful spears and sticks.