"Tell them in England country sheikh ask great man shoot--insult if
villagers shoot too."
I could not help laughing at the idea of a day's "shoot" at home when
all the beaters from the countryside carried rifles. It would make some
"shoots" a good deal more exciting than they often are.
The sheikh himself would have sent his rifle away as well, though I saw
that it would almost break his heart to do so. However, I explained by
gestures that I wanted him to shoot with me, and his pride and joy were
comical to see.
Eventually we shoved off for the ravine, followed by hooded women
bearing huge chatties of water, and every "toddler" in the village
carrying a bigger or smaller bundle of dry date-palm leaves. It was as
quaint a shooting party as ever I had seen.
As we traversed the rocky slopes across which the _Intrepids_ had
advanced to the attack of the mouth of the ravine, the natives spread
out to pick up battered bullets and empty cartridge cases. They were
lying there in hundreds, and every big stone had one or two white marks
where bullets had struck it. At the mouth of the ravine, at the spot
where the Arabs had first taken up a position, the stones and rocks were
white with splashes and fragments of nine-pounder shells, and fuses and
shrapnel bullets lay among them. Close by were three cairns with wooden
crosses. These were the graves of the three who had been killed, and
the sheikh explained that he and his people had piled up those big
stones so that the wolves and jackals should not disturb them.
Passing through the ravine we once more entered that vast hollow, left
the sunshine behind us, and craned our necks upwards to see the gap.
Six days ago, when I was there, it and the path had been full of living
creatures and ringing with shouts from one zigzag to another, as the
bluejackets and villagers tried to bring down the camels. Now the gloom
was haunted with silence and loneliness. Except for two or three
bloated vultures, which flew heavily upwards and disappeared over the
rim, not a thing moved. The not-yet-whitened skeletons of several camels
showed what a feast they and the jackals had made.
As we did on that first memorable day, so we did on this. The villagers
were ordered to remain at the bottom whilst the sheikh, Mr. Scarlett,
myself, and the rest of the men climbed up the zigzag. We left Hartley
below; he solemnly shook his head when he saw what kind of a path it
was, and, as he was already pretty well "done up", I let him stay. He
promptly went to sleep.
When we did reach the top, walked through the gap, and looked down into
the valleys beyond, I almost expected to see the huge snake of a caravan
wriggling up to us again. I showed Mr. Scarlett where we had first seen
it, and pointed out the rocks behind which we had crouched nearly all
that day; also the rock on which Jaffa had stood calling out in the
dark: "Khalli bunduk 'ak! Ma kattle kum! Ist agel!"
He was very interested, but the sheikh was still more impatient, so we
spread out along the crest just as we had done before, and then he gave
the signal for the villagers to beat up towards us.
I don't know what I imagined they would do. They were not flies, or even
goats, so I could hardly expect them to climb up the precipice; but what
actually occurred was that, after spreading over the whole of the bottom
of the "coffee-cup", yelling and throwing stones into any places likely
to conceal a leopard, they all made for the zigzag path and came up it
very swiftly, one behind the other, yelling like fury, beating the rocks
with their spears as they passed them, the ones in rear beating the
rocks which had already been struck a hundred times already, just as
vigorously as the first. Occasionally they threw blazing bundles of
date-palm leaves into crevices and caves; but, except for this and the
noise they made, their ideas of what was wanted were very laughable.
The sheikh had lain down close to me. Presently he gave an exclamation
and pointed. I saw a leopard slinking round a rock just ahead of some
shouting villagers; he was at least four hundred yards away, and before
I could stop the old man he had fired his rifle, regardless of the fact
that if his aim was anywhere in that direction he was far more likely to
hit one of his own people than the leopard. I need not have worried
myself. The bullet struck a rock close below us and shrieked away into
the sky, whilst the recoiling butt struck his cheek. First of all he
looked to see whether the leopard was dead, and as it had disappeared
behind a rock he was as pleased as "Punch"; then he felt his cheek and
patted his rifle reprovingly as if it were a naughty boy. But he
smacked it a moment after, when the leopard appeared again, bounding up
the rocks.
I roared with laughter, which of course upset him. Holding the rifle
more gingerly than ever, and keeping his face well out of the danger
line (he could not possibly have looked along his sights) he fired
again, and of course "thump" went the butt against his shoulder. At
that he laid the rifle down, sat up, and gazed scornfully at it,
jabbering something to me which I, of course, did not understand.
The leopard was now standing on a rock, entirely unaware that he had
been fired at, watching the advancing beaters, twitching his tail, and
uncertain what to do.
I nodded to the sheikh to watch how it should be done, took a steady
aim, and fired.
The animal was two hundred yards away, if an inch, and I did not expect
to hit him, but luck was with me. He sprang up, pawing the air, gave
two or three huge bounds from rock to rock, then just missed the edge of
a boulder, clawed frantically for a moment, and fell on the zigzag path
dead.
The wonder and amazement showing in the old man's eyes were the greatest
compliment I had ever had paid to my skill. He handed me his rifle and
wanted to try mine, taking it with an awed expression as if it were a
live thing. Then he noticed the difference in the breech (mine was a
Lee-Metford, his a Mauser), and a cunning smile flickered across his
face, as if that was the reason why mine had behaved so much better.
His eyes simply danced from rock to rock, watching for something to
appear, so that he could show me that with the same rifle he was just as
good a shot as myself. Presently a wolf or jackal trotted along a
narrow ledge of rock below us. He threw up my rifle, pressing the
trigger at the same moment, and, as he never even held it tightly, and
was sitting up on his haunches, was nearly knocked over by the recoil.
Where the bullet went goodness knows, but his look of abject
disappointment when he recovered himself and saw the beast still running
along was too comical for words. He gave the rifle back to me, waved
his hands as if to say that he would have nothing more to do with such
works of Satan, folded his cloak round him, and sat sulkily indifferent.
His green turban and crimson cloak made him a quaint figure in the
glaring sunlight.
The others fired a few shots (though at what I could not see) and I only
hoped that they would not shoot the villagers. Nothing more appeared
for us to shoot at, till presently a vulture, coming from nowhere,
perched heavily on a rock not fifty yards away--a splendid target for a
rifle. He was quite indifferent to our presence.
I made the sheikh lie down--he was as excited as a child again--showed
him how to hold the rifle, press it into his shoulder, and look along
the sights; the bird watching us all the time, looking like a ragged
tramp sitting for his photograph.
When he at last fired, the bullet hit a rock at least ten yards below
the bird; but the report frightened it and it flew away.
The old man evidently thought he had wounded it, for he recovered his
affability and patted the rifle approvingly, smiling at me.
Whether or no there were as many leopards as we had believed, at any
rate we saw no more there, and presently they brought my dead one up to
the gap and commenced skinning him. Whilst they were doing this the
sheikh led us down to some craggy rocks on the other slope, and a
leopard was frightened out of them but broke back through the frightened
villagers, and only gave me a long and hopeless shot whilst he was
travelling very fast. I am sure the old gentleman was rather pleased
that he wasn't the only one who missed.
This was a disappointing day's shooting, but the exercise did us all the
good in the world, and we went back to the village quite content. As we
drew near the villagers rushed ahead to exchange their spears and sticks
for their beloved rifles, came back to meet us, and fired another _feu
de joie_.
At a word from Mr. Scarlett the sheikh, seizing a stick, rushed in among
them and whacked left and right till they stopped. If he realized the
danger it was a very plucky thing to do, because bullets were whizzing
all round us.
It was very evident that if the villagers went on expending their
precious cartridges as they had this day, they would soon have none left
to keep the Bedouins away. This waste of good ammunition so outraged
Mr. Scarlett's professional feelings that he actually spent the greater
part of the next week teaching them the elements of rifle shooting. I
had never seen him so happy for so many days together.
Under the shade of some "nabac" trees close to the well he rigged a
tripod and a sand-bag for a rifle to rest on, painted some black
bull's-eyes on the side of one of the huts, and every evening showed the
villagers how to look along their sights and get them in a line with the
bull's-eye.
At the end of the week he rigged a target some way along the beach and
invited me to see the results of his training. I do not suppose that
there was a single man, woman, or child but had come down to join in the
excitement. They were all gathered round the firing point, some eighty
or one hundred yards from the target, jabbering noisily--the children
not being more childish than the "grown-ups".
Then in absolute silence--even the children held their breath--the first
man lay down and aimed very carefully. He fired, and every single soul
scampered pell-mell along the beach to the target to see where it had
been hit.
In spite of actually seeing most of the bullets striking the sand, they
had the most implicit confidence in each other's marksmanship; and I
nearly burst myself with laughing, when, after a little while, they
began to tire of running to and fro after every shot, and actually
gathered round the target itself with their heads as close to the black
bull's-eye as they could get them, waiting for the next shot.
Mr. Scarlett managed with difficulty to bring them back, but at this
rate the millennium would have arrived by the time each man had fired
the three rounds he allowed them. As a matter of fact this exhibition
of the result of his training did take three evenings, and I do not
remember that any man hit any part of the canvas more than twice. Most
of them never hit it at all. However, they were not in the least
disappointed; they were all too ignorant and stupid to mind what became
of the bullet so long as the noise and recoil were big enough. Not even
when Mr. Scarlett put the target four hundred yards or so farther along
the beach, and he and I fired a dozen rounds and hit the bull's-eye
seven times between us, did they show much appreciation. Every one of
them--even the children--put their fingers in the holes and shouted with
glee; but they evidently considered the whole performance due to
magic--not our magic, but the rifles' magic.
The sheikh refused to fire, evidently not wanting to disgrace himself
before the tribe, although his explanation, given to Jaffa, was that it
was quite unnecessary--"that if he could hit a vulture at twenty paces,
of course he could hit a huge piece of canvas."
Well, even Mr. Scarlett could not be expected to train those poor
ignorant fishermen in three or four days. I do believe that they
imagined that all that was necessary was to put a cartridge in the
rifle, show it the object, and pull the trigger. Allah would look after
the bullet. If he did not mean it to hit--well it wouldn't, that was
all--and Mr. Scarlett and Jaffa had not sufficient command of their
language to make them believe otherwise.
Even after this fatuous display the sheikh confidently told Jaffa that
he pitied any poor Bedouins who tried to attack his town--town! mind
you; not collection of hovels, as it actually was. His own house and
the dome-shaped well were the only two structures you could lean against
without risk of falling through the sides. He and his silly simpletons
of villagers really believed that they were now a formidable tribe--with
their rifles, their new finery, their sacks of dates, and the flocks of
sheep the Arab traders had given them in exchange for the camels. They
suffered badly from "swollen heads", were too proud to fish, and loafed
about the village with their rifles and silver-mounted daggers--doing
nothing. The women were just as foolish over the stores of food and the
unaccustomed finery they now had, and all had lost any fear of the
Bedouins swooping down through the gap to take revenge.
Every camel except one had been taken away, and that one the sheikh kept
for his own use, fitting it out with the gorgeous trappings belonging to
Jassim's own riding camel--the one I had killed on the zigzag path.
When he was perched, insecurely and uncomfortably, on top of all this
splendour, he thought himself the finest fellow in the world, in spite
of the fact that the brute could only be induced to move, and that only
at a snail's pace, by being pulled along by his halter.
He used to mount it and come along with me when I went shooting along
the mountain slopes; but he could never keep up with me, however much
the attendant villagers hauled on the head-rope.
One evening, as our fortnight's stay was drawing to a close, we saw from
the _Bunder Abbas_ two little dots moving rapidly down from the mouth of
the ravine. As they drew nearer we saw that they were two camels, and
that a man was riding the first and leading the other. Darkness
swallowed them up; but next morning there were three camels kneeling
under the shade of the dark-green "nabac" trees alongside the well--the
sheikh's and the two strange ones. And whilst we were wondering who the
man could have been, a boat paddled off with a letter for Mr. Scarlett.
As he caught sight of the handwriting he actually seemed to shrivel; the
lines in his face became drawn and haggard, his eyes positively sank
into their sockets, and that horrid, frightened, muddy colour spread
over his face and down his neck. I knew then who had written the
letter--Jassim.
Mr. Scarlett staggered into the cabin and slid the door across. It
seemed hours before he opened it--just a crack--and beckoned to me.
"Same thing, sir, only more threatening. Says he will take it off
without hurting. That he must have it, and he'll give me still more
money."
I had not the patience to try to persuade him to run the slight risk and
get rid of the beastly bracelet once and for all, so said nothing. It
was he who at last, trembling and sweating with fright, suggested that
Jassim should be allowed to come on board and talk things over--"if--if
you'll stand by with a revolver, sir, and kill him if he tries to seize
it."
It was the only sensible course to take; and, later on, Jassim did come
aboard.
What a grand-looking fellow he was in spite of his age, and how he must
have hated me and the _Bunder Abbas_ for the part we had played in
capturing his caravan! If he did, he showed no sign, salaaming to me as
to an equal. I took him up to our little deck, to Mr. Scarlett, and the
two began yarning very earnestly, whilst I stood by to see fair play.
Jassim was evidently explaining how he proposed to take off the
bracelet, and produced two pairs of thin pincers--the same idea that my
chum and I had suggested a hundred times.
Some extraordinary excess of courage seemed to come to Mr. Scarlett, and
he actually bared his arm, uncovered the bandage, and showed the snake.
As it glittered in the sunlight I saw Jassim's eyes flash with something
which was not all greed. He slid on his knees, bent down till his lips
touched it, holding out his hands and muttering something. Then he rose
to his feet, his chest muscles working under his muslin shirt, walked to
the rails, and stood for a few moments looking towards the mountains.
Mr. Scarlett's arm was stretched across the table, the muscles clenched
so hard that they stood out in lumps. He looked at me appealingly, said
something to Jassim, who came back to the table, lay half across it to
steady himself, and took up those two pincers. Very, very gently he
began to insert the jaws of one under a coil of the bracelet, whilst
with the other he held fast the head of the snake. I noticed Mr.
Scarlett shudder as the pincers touched his skin, and great drops of
sweat gathered on his forehead. Then Jassim gently pulled at the coil
until it began to come away from the skin. I was looking on,
fascinated, my eyes riveted on the head, which, although it was gripped
by the other pair of pincers, seemed to be fighting to twist itself
backwards and wriggle itself free. At an unlucky moment those pincers
slipped off the head, and as the iron dug into Mr. Scarlett's arm and
the head flattened itself against the skin, Mr. Scarlett's self-control
gave way.
Clenching his free hand over the snake, and seizing the pincers which
held the coil, he tore them out of Jassim's hand and jumped away. His
chair and the pincers fell with a clatter on the deck, and he stumbled
blindly into the cabin, crying to me to send Jassim away, and closing
the door behind him.
I turned towards the Arab. He too seemed to have grown older. His face
was not pleasant to look at. I managed somehow or other to get rid of
him, but there was no peace for me. Mr. Scarlett would not let me leave
him all that day nor all through the night. I think he must have been
mad. He sat crouched in one corner of the cabin, clutching the snake
with his right hand, and moaning for me not to leave him if ever I
stirred.
I did everything I could to rouse him--taunted him with cowardice, told
him that he was not fit to be called an Englishman, let alone an
officer; but he only whimpered like a child, and moaned that it was the
Arab blood in him, rocking himself backwards and forwards, cursing
himself for ever having allowed Jassim to see the snake.
When day broke after that horrid night those two camels had disappeared
from under the nabac trees. Seizing my telescope and looking towards the
mountains I could see them entering the gloomy mouth of the ravine. Mr.
Scarlett was just in time to see them too, and some of the terror in his
face faded away as they were lost to view. All day he followed me,
cringing and apologizing in the most abject manner. Twice he came to
me, with his face set and determined, to ask me to take off the snake;
but at the sight of it round his bare arm he would alter his mind and
say: "Not now, sir; let's wait till Jassim shows his hand again; let's
wait till we go back to Muscat!" I lost patience with him completely,
and would not speak to him.
The whole crew were, of course, aware that something mysterious had
occurred, and Percy guessed that danger threatened his hero. It was
quite pathetic to watch him following Mr. Scarlett with his big brown
eyes, and looking wistfully sad at not being able to help him.
This affair of Jassim completely upset me, and made me wish that the
_Bunder Abbas_ should be sent patrolling again. However monotonous that
might be, there would not be the dread of such a scene and such a horrid
night as I had just spent with the gunner. Our fortnight at
Kalat-al-Abeid had now come to a close, so I went ashore to wish my old
friend the sheikh good-bye and to give him a few parting words of
advice--through Jaffa. I pointed out to him that if a man and two
camels could come riding down from the gap without anyone seeing them,
five hundred could do so just as easily and just as unexpectedly.
However, he only smiled a superior smile and patted his rifle, so I left
him complacently oblivious to his danger, and took the _Bunder Abbas_
through the channel in the cliffs out into the open sea once more. Once
out there Mr. Scarlett quickly recovered his composure, but I very much
dreaded what would happen should we be detained at Muscat for any length
of time.
However, we were in luck. When I went aboard the _Intrepid_ to report
myself, and told Commander Duckworth that, so far, the Bedouins had made
no attempt to attack the village, and amused him by describing the
results of their rifle practice and the grand appearance of the old
sheikh on his walking camel, he said: "Well, Martin, you've had a
fortnight's rest, and now I have rather an amusing job for you. There's
a place called Sur on the chart; it's thirty miles to the south'ard, a
deep backwater with two towns--Heija, on the north-east side, belonging
to the Beni-Bu-Ali tribe; and, on the west, Shateif-al-Kabira, inhabited
by the Beni Janaba. They hate each other like poison, and are always
having rows. There is only one decent well for both towns--half-way
between them--and the old Sultan has a fort and keeps a garrison there
to protect it and keep order. A few months ago he sent a son of his
there to command, and the harum-scarum young ass got himself into a
mess, enraged both tribes so much that they've joined forces--for the
first time on record--and surrounded his precious fort. As a personal
favour the Sultan has asked the political agent if he will get him out
of this trouble; so there's your job, and off you go as soon as you're
ready. The Sultan is sending off a few thousand rupees, and if you find
these won't do the trick, and the tribes are bent on getting the young
scamp's blood, just bring him back with you. The _Bunder Abbas_ can get
quite close in to the fort, and you ought to have no trouble. At any
rate, fix things up as best you can."
"Thank you very much, sir!" I said, and asked him if there was any more
news from Jask.
He shook his head. "The political agent is always hearing rumours of
trouble--nothing more. They haven't sent those ladies away. I wish
they would."
So did I.
I stayed on board to lunch with Popple Opstein. He was beginning to find
lying off Muscat rather dull work after the exciting times we had had,
and almost wished we had not captured all those arms. "The gun-running
business has been knocked on the head for the next few months or so," he
told me, "and things are as dull as ditch-water."
The _Bunder Abbas_ had taken nearly all her coal, water, and provisions
on board by the time I went back to her, and I found Mr. Scarlett in
another of his nervous saturnine fits. Moore told me he had shut
himself in his cabin ever since the coal lighter had come alongside.
When he came out to speak to me he was so nervous and shaky that I was
more than ever anxious about him.
To come back from the noisy, cheery mess aboard the _Intrepid_ to be
cooped up alone with him again made me feel extremely miserable. I was
beginning to dread Percy announcing a meal. The food, generally
speaking, was horrid--horrid to look at and horrid to eat. The gunner
would sit on one side of the table, I on the other, and we often never
spoke a single word all through a single meal except to curse Percy or
the cook or the flies or the sun blazing through the awning. At least
once every day the wretched cook would be sent for by the gunner and
slanged in Hindustani or Urdu or some such queer dialect or other until
he slunk down the ladder trembling with fear. Often to avoid a row with
the gunner I would go away and leave him to finish his meal by himself.
Latterly, when I saw Percy laying the cloth for "food", I would find
myself a job of work to do, hoping that Mr. Scarlett would finish before
I came. But that was no good; he would always wait for me.
I was, in fact, heartily sick of him. I don't mean to say that I
actually disliked him, but we had nothing whatever in common once we had
told each other all the yarns we knew and when the subject of
gun-running was worn threadbare.
It suddenly occurred to me to ask old Popple Opstein to get leave and
come along with me for this trip to Sur, so I signalled across, and
presently back came a semaphore: "Right oh! leave granted. What time do
you sail?"
I was not going until the morning; it was no good spending a night at
sea along that coast. So I signalled: "Daybreak--delighted."
He made me dine with him; we had a great sing-song on the poop, with the
ship's company chipping in, and after it he came back with me, bringing
his bedding and other gear.
The night was as hot as Hades, without a breath of air, but the old
"_B.A._" standing out in the moonlight was a different ship with Popple
Opstein climbing up her side and with him to yarn to before we lay down
on the little deck outside the cabin (inside which Mr. Scarlett had
again shut himself) and tried to sleep.
Not much sleep did we get, so much had we to talk about, and so pleasant
it was for me to have someone to talk to.
*CHAPTER XIII*
*Rounding up a Prodigal*
At daybreak next morning our little steam-winch ran the anchor out of
the water merrily, and off we went for Sur, its two towns of
irrepressible Arabs, and the young scamp of a Sultan's son who had
caused all this bobbery. Old Popple Opstein, in his pyjamas, lay back
in my easy chair, smoking his noisy pipe--the deck all round him soon
strewn with half-burnt matches--and looking happy and contented to sit
there and watch me take the _Bunder Abbas_ out of harbour. Mr. Scarlett,
his old self once more, was in the bows under the awning, securing the
anchor, and I'm almost certain he was whistling a cheerful tune; the
crew, both black and white, were skylarking and singing snatches of song
whilst they scrubbed and holystoned the decks; Percy's big, shy eyes
were dancing with fun as he brought three cups of tea up the ladder to
our little deck; and even the despondent cook seemed to have made a
better brew than usual that morning.
"Here's luck to the '_B.A._'!" Popple Opstein cried, as he drank his,
and the _Bunder Abbas_, not intending to be left out of the
lightheartedness and gaiety he had brought with him, dipped her bows
into the swell and gambolled and sported like a porpoise.
It was a very joyous morning, and though the monsoon was in a rather too
playful mood we made five knots against it as we steamed along that
grand coast line. By noon Jebel-al-Khamis, towering into the burning
vault of blue sky, showed that we were abreast the opening in the cliffs
which led to Sur, so over went the helm and inshore we steamed, with the
swell catching us up, sliding under us, and hastening ahead to crash
itself to a foaming dazzling death. A cairn perched on the top of the
naked cliff, and a vast jumble of rocks, piled on each other like a heap
of enormous broken bricks, at its foot, marked the entrance to the
actual channel. In half an hour we were inside just such another ravine
as the one leading to Kalat-al-Abeid, only the walls were not so high
nor so bold. The roar of the breaking swell outside died away: we
twisted this way and that, and saw by the chart that in a few minutes we
should turn another corner, enter the open backwater, and see right
ahead of us the fort which guarded the well, and the two towns whose
people were trying to "do for" the Sultan's son, or the "Prodigal Son"
as my chum called him.
By this time we were both in uniform--if one could call it uniform:
white topee helmets, white cotton shirts with the sleeves rolled up,
white cotton "shorts", bare legs, and canvas shoes. We only had to put
our neck through our revolver lanyards and buckle our revolver belts
round our waists to be ready to land and demand the Prodigal Son; quite
ready even though ten thousand Arabs wanted to keep him. The chart
showed three fathoms of water quite close to the fort which he was so
gallantly, or otherwise, holding out against such odds; the little
"_B.A._" only drew eight feet at the stern, so we could run up almost
alongside, and the one thousand or ten thousand Arabs would, we feared,
soon alter their minds when they heard the chink of those dollars. Both
of us sincerely hoped that they would not and would give the six-pounder
and the Maxims a chance of arguing it out with them. We were doing this
for the Sultan as a personal favour, so knew he wouldn't mind how many
of his faithful (?) subjects went to Paradise during the argument. We
certainly did not.
"My dear old chap," Popple Opstein said, smacking me on the back as this
thought struck him, "there'll be no red-tape business about this little
job; none of your beastly waiting for them to fire at you first, no
worry about 'papers' and nationality or rot like that. Just go straight
in, see how things are; if he's in a tight place, and they won't take
the old man Sultan's bag of dollars, pull the Prodigal Son out by the
scruff of his neck--and there we are. We ought to have fine sport."
Presently we ran clear of the channel into a big backwater or "khor",
not so big as that at Kalat-al-Abeid but longer and more narrow, its
shores thick with scraggy, dried-up-looking mangrove trees, with here
and there a clump of darker almond trees, the everlasting bare hills
rising behind everything.
"There's the fort," we both cried, pointing to the top end, where we
could see a big, square, battlemented building about two miles away,
standing alone on a waste of sand in which even the mangrove trees
apparently could not exist, for they stopped short perhaps five hundred
yards from either side of the fort. Almost at the same moment we
spotted the two rebellious towns--one on each shore--nestling under the
trees. Through my telescope I saw that the red flag of Muscat drooped
down from the flagstaff over the fort, so we had not arrived too late!
Not another sign of life appeared, no figures were moving about behind
the parapet of the fort, and not a single soul showed on the open sandy
space. As we drew nearer, a dark patch close to the edge of the sea
turned out to be a couple of trees half-concealing a dome-shaped
well--the well for the guarding of which the fort had been built.
It all seemed so peaceable that we were rather disappointed, until
suddenly that open space round the fort simply swarmed with crawling
figures, hundreds of little white "puff-balls" of smoke seemed to grow
out of the sand, and great spurts of white smoke leapt out from the
battlemented parapet of the fort itself. The dull booms coming across
the water told us that the Prodigal Son must be firing his old
muzzle-loading cannon. To judge by the amount of firing, he was having
a very bad time of it indeed.
"Just in time, Martin, old chap," Popple Opstein chuckled, his face
becoming violet in his excitement. "Shove the '_B.A._' ahead and we'll
chip in."
Mr. Scarlett, sucking in his breath and looking unhappy, wondered why
they were fighting in the heat of midday.
"They never do so," he said. "It must be a very fierce attack."
But I was not going to shove on any faster. To begin with, I had to go
carefully, because there were many shoal patches marked on the chart;
and, to end with, I couldn't go faster, because the packing in the
high-pressure piston-rod gland had opened out on the way down. The
lascar engine-drivers were already terrified at the escape of noisy
steam, and if we shoved her on faster the packing might blow out
altogether.
So I just sent along two or three six-pounder shells--or, to be
accurate, four--two among the people on one side, two among the people
on the other.
"The white sea-lord metes out even justice," old Popple Opstein chuckled
(of course I had told him the yarn about the "white sea-lord jolly well
wanting to shoot his own leopards ").
The little shells burst beautifully, and their result was magical. The
dark crawling figures making "puff-balls" tore back to the cover of some
huts at the edge of the mangroves, whilst the defenders of the fort gave
it them hot with the little cannon.
As we anchored within fifty yards of the shore--just abreast the big
fort with its red flag, and the white-domed well close to it--the big
door at one corner was flung open, and out streamed a crowd of men laden
with water-skins and chatties--any mortal thing which would hold
water--hurrying to the well. They began working like the very dickens
to fill them, and staggered back again into the fort with anxious
glances to right and left, to see whether the tribesmen were going to
attack again.
"We were just in time, old sonny," my chum grinned; "they were short of
water."
"That's why they were fighting at noonday," Mr. Scarlett explained. "It
must have been a very close thing."
I prepared to land. Where I went my chum went too. We both buckled on
our revolver belts, and I saw to it that he put his lanyard round his
neck this time. Jaffa, clean as a new pin, standing at the side waiting
for Griffiths to bring the dinghy alongside, was making certain that the
magazine of his Mauser pistol was full. Mr. Scarlett remained in
charge; Moore had to "stand by" with the six-pounder, and Webster and
his marines manned one Maxim, Ellis and his bluejackets the other. With
the knowledge that they would shoot straight and quickly there was no
danger in landing, and I knew that no Arab would play the fool with us.
It was my chum who suggested that we should lay out a kedge-anchor
astern, in order to bring the "_B.A._"'s broadside to bear. This
delayed us for a quarter of an hour, but at last we were ready, and with
a white ensign flying in the stern of the dinghy--almost as big as
herself--we landed on the beach: Popple Opstein, Jaffa, and myself. My
aunt, but it was hot! The sand seemed to burn through our rope-soled
shoes as we tramped up towards the well and its two weeping "nabac"
trees. Footmarks in thousands were all round it; one deep trail leading
to the door of the fort, two more leading away along the sand to the
towns on either side.
As we left the shade of the trees the door at the angle of the fort
opened, and out came four Arabs, armed to the teeth with rifles, belts
of cartridges, swords, and huge curved daggers. They advanced to meet
us, salaaming a hundred times. The leader fixed his dark eyes on me
whilst he jabbered away to Jaffa.
Jaffa translated, to the effect--more or less--that, thanks to the
all-seeing benevolent kindness of the Prophet, whose name be praised,
who always shielded the true believer and scattered his enemies just as
they were cock-sure of having won in an innings with runs to spare--or
words to that effect--we, rulers of the sea and sons of the Great White
Queen, had unexpectedly turned up and scored the winning goal just as
time was called. He implored us to demean our noble selves sufficiently
to take some abominable refreshment (he was pretty well right in that)
under the wretched roof of his cowardly and entirely despicable master,
the mighty fighter, the heaven-born leader of men, born with a
double-edged sword in his hand, and destined to bring joy to the heart
of his noble father, the Sultan of Muscat, "to whom all we pigs and
nobodies own eternal allegiance--Mohammed be praised!" There was
another long rigmarole to explain why the Prodigal Son could not come to
receive us, but I gathered that he had been wounded in this recent
attack, and was having his wounds dressed even now.
"Right oh! We'll go along with them," I told Jaffa, cutting him short.
"Tell him that we didn't come here by chance, but at the request of the
Sultan."
The sheikh, or whoever he was, received this news with astonishment.
"He say they all lay down lives for Sultan--love Sultan very much,"
Jaffa interpreted to me with impassive face.
Off we went, and, my word, it was a most unpleasant place! The foot of
the walls of the fort was piled with all kinds of rubbish--cast-off
blood-stained clothes, bones, skeletons of dogs and camels, all the
filth one could imagine--and the stench was horrid.
Popple Opstein pointed out any number of bullet marks in the crumbling
bricks of the forts, and we made grimaces as we realized what a very
tough defence they must have been making, and how excessively
uncomfortable they must be.
Two solemn, weary-looking Arabs--one bandaged about the head--opened a
little door in the big one, which had been closed again, and we passed
into a large passage, which opened out into the court-yard in the centre
of the fort. Stone benches on either side of this passage-way were
thronged with more tired-looking soldiers, most of them asleep, and very
many of them evidently wounded. In the court-yard itself the heat and
the smell were awful. Thirty or forty lean horses were tethered in the
open, a dozen camels knelt stolidly in the shade which a mat-screen gave
them, whilst hundreds of goats and sheep wandered about feeding on
whatever garbage lay about. As we passed across, and tried to avoid
falling over sheep, being kicked by a horse, or bitten by a camel, a
score or more battle-stained Arabs raised themselves wearily from the
ground and leant on their rifles.
"A beastly place to be cooped up in," Popple Opstein whispered, as we
followed our guides through an archway into a delightfully-cool chamber
or hall, and up some winding stone steps to the upper story. This was
evidently where the officials and officers lived--much more handsomely
decorated it was, with carvings, and lattice-work of stone, wood, and
iron, elegant pillars and arches forming a delightfully-cool,
creeper-covered balcony above the four sides of the crowded court-yard,
from which, however, the smell and the noise of all the animals below
were still too unpleasantly evident. Fifty or more soldiers were lying
on this balcony in every attitude of weary sleep, and as we hurried
along it after our silent guides we could catch a glimpse of the
battlements on the flat roof above our heads, and a motionless sentry
standing out vividly against the sky, watching to give the alarm did the
tribesmen make another attack.
We passed several elegant door-ways screened with matting, and then, at
last, a richly-embroidered curtain was drawn aside and we were ushered
into a long, darkened room, the wooden floors carpeted with splendid
rugs, on which six or seven magnificently-dressed Arabs were seated.
They welcomed us gravely. Most of them appeared to have been wounded:
one had his arm in a sling, another had his leg swathed in white cotton
and tried to repress a groan when he moved. We, in our very rudimentary
costume, must have made a comical appearance in the midst of all this
magnificence; but we didn't care "tuppence" about that. On a raised,
rug-carpeted platform a very handsome Arab stood erect, his left arm
bound closely to his chest under his white linen shirt, his right hand
grasping the hilt of a gold-mounted dagger stuck in his belt. Salaaming
gravely, he stepped down to meet us with outstretched hand, drew us to
the platform, and made us sit beside him.
We almost fell over ourselves when he burst out with: "It's awfully good
of you fellows to come along--awfully lucky, too; just when things were
queer. Another hour of it and my chaps would have burst out to get water
or die--you saw them scurrying out. I can never be too grateful. You
are on your way to Muscat, I suppose; if you can see my father, the
Sultan, or get hold of the Chief Wazir, tell him you have saved his
son's honour. He will do anything for you, I know."
"Oh no!" I said, when I'd recovered from my astonishment at hearing him
speak such English. "We've come straight from Muscat, at the Sultan's
special request, to get news of you."