United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"There came a Pathan to me in the Cavern of Earth's Drink with word that yonder sits a hakim. What of it?" King had almost forgotten the message he had sent to Muhammad Anim in the Cavern of Earth's Drink. But that was not why his eyes looked past the mullah's now, nor why he did not answer. The mullah did not look round, for he knew what was happening.
He had been blind. He had overlooked the obvious that from first to last her plan had been to set herself and this Rewa Gunga on the throne of India! He washed and went through the mummery of muslim prayers for the watchful mullah's sake, and climbed on to his bed. But sleep seemed out of the question. He lay and tossed for an hour, his mind as busy as a terrier in hay.
When the British frontier was drawn in to enable the statement to be made in Parliament that "the Mullah's troops were no longer within protectorate limits," he took advantage of it to deal ruthlessly with those tribes which had refused to join him on the solemn and definite promise that Government would protect them from his vengeance.
In 1912 it was found necessary to form a company of Somali police on camels to keep the peace between "friendlies" who, to allay a certain amount of indignation at home, had been armed with rifles to protect themselves against the Mullah's people, but were using these weapons, in their light-hearted way, to argue questions of grazing as they arose.
The two together, seizing the tree-tops, bent them down, broke the boughs, tore off the creepers, washed away the flowers, cast up the river in great waves, and made a general tumult. One brother flew off with Rahamat Mullah's head-gear; the other made a fountain of his beard. The boatmen lowered the sail, the Babu closed the windows, and the servants put the furniture under shelter.
As for the Mad Mullah's reply, it was simply pure delirium. The journey from Somaliland, and his meeting with his friend Mr. Dillon, appeared to have had the worse effects on his sanity. He opened with the statement that he was a tea-pot: and that was the only really coherent remark he made. Prince Otto placed a hand wearily on his throbbing brow. "We must have a conference," he said.
'And ye know that those lowland dogs will make oath that we have slain scores. Will the Mullah pay the fines or must we sell our guns? A low growl ran round the fires. 'Now, seeing that all this is the Mullah's work, and that we have gained nothing but promises of Paradise thereby, it is in my heart that we of the Khusru Kheyl lack a shrine whereat to pray.
The unhappy Dolbahuntas were almost wiped out as a tribal unit; their zarebas and flimsy villages were surrounded by the Mullah's men and fired, leaving the occupants men, women and children the choice of a dreadful end among blazing thorns or red death on the spears of their fellow-countrymen and co-religionists.
And bear in mind, for this is important: King wrote to Yasmini a letter, in Urdu from the mullah's cave, in which he as good as gave her his word of honor to be her "loyal servant" should she choose to return to her allegiance. He is no splitter of hairs, no quibbler. His word is good on the darkest night or wherever he casts a shadow in the sun.
It was easy, for they were numb from what they had witnessed and dazed by fear. In half an hour he had them mustered and marching. "Let us go back and loot the mullah's camp and take the women!" urged a dozen men at least. "Go then!" said King. "Go back! But I go on!" "He is afraid! The hakim is afraid of what he saw!" King let them think so.
Word Of The Day