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The respectable old gentleman, it seems, had sent his first son to murder us, placing the second at a convenient distance to assist him. The latter, surprised that the business lagged, came up to see to it. And the Agha himself, finding that business lagged, came finally to attend to it himself. The Mullah urged the danger of injuring persons of consequence.
The arrival of this reinforcement renewed the violence of the discussion, between the Mullah on one side, and the young men on the other. It plainly related to us, and the fierce looks of the Kurds, as they walked to and fro with their hands on their daggers, would have alarmed us, had we not had full confidence in the power and good will of our friend.
Nagendra was in a great strait. If, in fear of the storm, he should leave the boat, the men would think him a coward; if he remained he would break his word to Surja Mukhi. Some may ask, What harm if he did? We know not, but Nagendra thought it harm. At this moment Rahamat Mullah said, "Sir, the rope is old; I do not know what may happen.
They clamoured, swore, and argued round the fires; the women wailing for the lost, and the Mullah shrieking curses on the returned. Then Khoda Dad Khan, eloquent and unbreathed, for he had taken no part in the fight, rose to improve the occasion.
Once in the arena, the guards took charge of all three of them and lined them up facing the mullah, clubbing them with their rifle-butts to get quick obedience. The crowd began to be noisy again, but the mullah signed for silence. "These are traitors!" he howled, with a gesture such as Ajax might have used when he defied the lightning. The roof said "Traitors!"
That same young man passed on through the huts, tapping here one cateran and there another lightly with his cane; and as each was pointed out, so he was tied up, staring hopelessly at the crowned heights around where the English soldiers looked down with incurious eyes. Only the Mullah tried to carry it off with curses and high words, till a soldier who was tying his hands said:
Of the Mullah Mohammed, who first preached the duty of casting off the yoke of the Giaour, and the necessity of a religious reform and union of rival sects, as a means to that end, we have already spoken.
But the kází, seeing how the mullah had taken advantage of the poor fellow's simplicity, gave him a present of a hundred rupis, besides sufficient for the expenses of his journey home, and so dismissed him.
He held it out, and as he took it King contrived to tear it; he also contrived to seem ashamed of his own clumsiness. "I will copy it out again," he said. The mullah swore at him, and conceiving that some extra show of authority was needful, growled out: "Remember all I said.
Rising in his stirrups he flung his arms in fervid ecstasy toward the heavens. Craven recognised in him a young Mullah of fanatical tendencies who had been particularly active in the camp during the preceding week.
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