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The news spread through Bokhara like a forest fire. They could hardly believe that a man would die for the Christian faith like that. As Sabat told his friends afterward, "All Bokhara seemed to say, 'What new thing is this?" But Sabat was in agony of mind.
Hereditary Christians are tolerated by the Moslem, but converts are bitterly persecuted; and Sabat flew into a great rage, argued, threatened, and at last denounced his old friend to the Moollahs as a recreant from Islam. Abdallah was arrested, and showed himself a true and faithful confessor and martyr. The Moollahs strove hard to make him recant.
"How soon will Colonel Clive be ready to take the field?" "He is ready now," I answered. "All he is waiting for is information from you as to the steps which you propose to take to support him." Meer Jaffier looked a little uneasy. "You are my friend, I know," he said. "You must speak good words on my behalf to Sabat Jung. Everything depends on him.
With his heart burning with rage and his great voice thundering with anger, Sabat left his friends, went aboard ship and sailed down the Bay of Bengal by the Indo-Chinese coast till he came to Penang, where he began to live as a trader. But by this time the fire of his anger had burnt itself out.
"What assurance have you of that?" I asked. "I know my countrymen. They judge a man by his deeds, and there is nothing that commands their respect like daring and success. Already they fear the Colonel; let them see him boldly attacking the Nabob, with me by his side, and they will quickly join us. Tell Sabat Jung my words." "And when do you intend to join the Colonel?"
There he took ship for Madras. Landing, he disguised himself as an Indian and went up to Vizagapatam to the house where his brother Sabat was living. Sabat saw this Indian, as he appeared to be, standing before him. He suspected nothing. Suddenly the disguised brother put his hand within his robe, seized his dagger, and leaping at Sabat made a fierce blow at him. Sabat flung out his arm.
It was generally agreed that the capital must be evacuated, and a stronger situation in the more mountainous part of the country occupied; but Isdigerd was so unwilling to remove that he waited till the Arabian general, with a force now raised to 60,000, had reached Sabat, which was only a day's march from the capital, before he could be induced to commence his retreat.
Very slight in build, not tall, clean-shaven, with a high forehead and sensitive lips, young Henry Martyn seemed a stripling beside the flaming Arab. Yet Sabat, with all his sound and fury, was no match for the swift-witted, clear-brained young Englishman. Henry Martyn was a chaplain in the army of the East India Company, which then ruled in India.
"Your life will still be given you if you renounce Christ and proclaim Allah and Mohammed as His prophet." This is how Sabat himself described what happened next. "Abdallah made no answer, but looked up steadfastly toward heaven, like Stephen, the first martyr, his eyes streaming with tears. He looked at me," said Sabat, "but it was with the countenance of forgiveness."
After some probation, which made Sabat so impatient that he threatened that he should accuse the minister before God if he delayed, he was baptized by the name of Nathanael, and sent to Serampore as a person likely to be useful in the translations always in hand there.
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