The Ruby Sword: A Romance of Baluchistan

by Bertram Mitford

  CHAPTER TWELVE.

  UMAR KHAN--FREEBOOTER.

  Umar Khan was a Baluchi who bore a very bad record indeed.

  One of his earlier exploits, in fact, that which was destined to starthim in his career of _budmashi_, and ultimately, in all probability,land him on the scaffold and faggot pyre [Note 1], had taken place manyyears before the events narrated in our story. He had been summonedbefore the Political Agent to answer for complicity--real or alleged--inthe raiding upon and blackmailing of certain wandering herdsmen,belonging to a weaker clan. The British official found him guilty, andsentenced him to a term of imprisonment, a terrible punishment to thefree, wild man of the deserts and mountains.

  The manner in which this one received the penalty to which he was doomedwas characteristic. His eyes blazed, and, his features working withdemoniacal fury, he spat forth a volume of curses and threats.

  "What does he say?" inquired the Political Agent.

  The interpreter replied that, apart from calling down all the mostforcible anathemas known to the Moslem creed upon the heads of thoseconcerned in his then discomfiture, the substance of the prisoner'sdeclaration was as follows:--The _Sirkar_ [Ruling power, _i.e._,Government] was strong, but those who had borne witness against him werenot. Let them beware. He would have ten lives for that day's work.The _Sirkar_ could not shut him up for ever. It could kill him, butthere were plenty left--several, even, who heard him that day--who wouldaccept his legacy of vengeance; and the witnesses against him had bettergo across the wide sea, if haply they might, for no corner of the landwherein they now dwelt was remote enough to hide them from the vengeanceof Umar Khan.

  To this manifesto the Political Agent replied in words of weightywarning. As the prisoner had said, the _Sirkar_ was strong--strong topunish, as he had already discovered. If, on the expiration of his termof imprisonment he continued his evil ways, or made any attempt tofulfil his threat, he would speedily find that there was no corner ofthe land remote enough to hide him from the vengeance of the _Sirkar_,which in that case would be swift, condign, and terrible--in fact themost terrible that could overtake him, viz: death with ignominy.

  So Umar Khan duly served his term, and in the fulness of time wasreleased. For a while the authorities kept an eye on him, and all wentwell. He was in no hurry, this wild, brooding, vindictive mountaineer.He employed his period of enforced quietude in secretly locating everyone of those who had borne witness against him, and when thesurveillance over his movements had relaxed, he became as good as hisword. One night he started for some of the objects of his feud, and,taking them by surprise, killed three. Two more he found in aneighbouring village, and these also felt the weight of his _tulwar_.But now things grew too lively. With half of his account of vengeancesettled, Umar Khan found himself forced to flee, unless he were preparedto forego--and that forever--the other half. So flee he did, both fastand far, hotly pursued by the Political Agent and a strong posse of Levysowars.

  Now, the said Political was a staff corps man who had seen some service,and, moreover a very energetic and zealous official; consequently, heallowed the fugitive no more start than he could help, with the resultthat the latter had no time to collect any following so as to afford himthe satisfaction of selling his life dearly. So day and night fled UmarKhan; but turn and double as he would, the avenging force pressed himhard, for the Levy sowars were men of the country, and knew all thetwists and turns of the mountains as well as he did; and their commanderwas a seasoned campaigner, and as hard as nails. However, fortunefavoured him, and the hunted man succeeded in reaching a place of refugeand of safety--as he thought.

  As he thought! For, persistent as bloodhounds, that avenging band heldsteadily upon his track. Finally they came up with him. Umar Khan wasin a tent asleep. Stealthily the pursuers drew up in crescentformation, and their commander summoned Umar to come forth. For amoment there was dead silence. Then swift as thought, a rifle muzzlewas poked through the flap of the tent. A loud report, and a bulletsang past the official's ear. The latter, more than ever bent onsecuring his prisoner alive, reiterated the summons, with thealternative in the event of noncompliance, of ordering a volley to befired into the tent. The reply came as before, in the shape of anotherbullet, which this time killed the horse of one of the sowars. Theorder was given to fire.

  The rattle and smoke of the volley rolled away--and lo! the sides of thetent were riddled like a sieve. There was a moment or two of silence,and again the officer challenged any who might be left alive to comeforth. There emerged from the tent door, a figure clad in the fullvoluminous draperies and close veil of an Afghan woman.

  She did not even look at the troop. She fled away over the plain asfast as her legs could carry her, uttering shrill screams. Those wholooked on were filled with wild amaze. How could any living thing haveescaped that volley? A movement made to pursue her was simultaneouslychecked, and then the Political Agent and some of the sowars entered thetent, but cautiously.

  Their caution in this instance was unnecessary. One human being alonewas in that tent--lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Such rudefurniture and utensils as there were had been riddled, and the grounditself ploughed up with bullets. The human figure was limp andlifeless, and--it was that of another woman.

  An idea struck the official. He leaped outside the tent; his gazedirected at the fast fleeing figure, now some distance away. He--andthose present--saw it drag out a horse from among the rocks and stonesof a dry nullah, and, flinging off the female attire, spring upon theanimal's back. Then darting forth a hand with defiant gesture, andhurling back a final curse and menace, the fugitive--a wiry, muscularmale--flogged his steed into a furious gallop, and was speedily out ofrange of the hurried volley sent after him.

  The officer stared, and, we fear, cursed. The Levy sowars stared, andcertainly invoked Allah and his Prophet; while laughing at both, yetstoring up deeper vengeance for the slaughter of one of his mostfaithful wives--who had shared and aided his flight, and eventually laiddown her life for him--fled Umar Khan far over the plains ofAfghanistan--further and further into that welcome land of refuge.

  There lay the rub. They dare not pursue him further. Already aviolation of international law had been committed in carrying thepursuit thus far. Well might the official feel foolish. That theirbird should be allowed to skip off right under their very noses in thegarb of the supposed female whom they had so very humanely spared wasenough to make him feel foolish. But he was destined to feel more sosubsequently, when an acrid representation from the Amir of Kabulentailed upon him a Departmental wigging, although but a technical one.After all, a man may be too zealous.

  After that Umar Khan disappeared for a while. The Amir of Kabul, whenmildly requested to hand him over, declined crustily, on the ground thatan armed force had pursued a fugitive over his border without so much asa by-your-leave. If the English attempted to police his country andfailed, he was not going to step in where they left off.

  So the years went by, and Umar Khan was lost sight of and forgotten.Then, suddenly, he reappeared in his old haunts.

  Changes of administration had supervened. The Government did not careto bother itself over a man who had been a desperate outlaw under itspredecessors, as long as he behaved himself and showed a disposition toamend the error of his ways. Moreover, he was a member of one of themost powerful and turbulent tribes in Baluchistan. The _Sirkar_concluded to let sleeping dogs lie. So it shut its eyes, and Umar Khanwas left in peace.

  In peace? Yes, so far as he was concerned. But he fixed his dwellingamong the wildest and most impracticable of mountain deserts--alwaysensuring for himself a safe retreat--and thence he began to prey uponall and any who had the wherewithal to pay up smartly for furtherimmunity.

  Then complaints began to reach Shalalai. Peaceable _banyas_ had beenplundered of all the gains they had made during a travelling trade.Merchants on a larger scale trading with Kabul had been relieved on aproportionate scale
, or even held to ransom. Umar Khan adopted a methodof his own for putting a stop to the complaints of such. It was themethod best expressed by the saw, "Dead men tell no tales"--and by wayof doing the thing thoroughly, he seized the whole of the plunderinstead of merely the half as heretofore, but took care that the ownershould not be on hand to lay any complaint. And leaving out many otherunchronicled misdeeds, we think we have said enough to establish ouropening statement, viz: that Umar Khan was a Baluchi who bore a very badrecord indeed.

  He was not a sirdar, nor even a malik. He was, in fact, a nobody, who--as not unfrequently happens among barbarian races--had raised himself toa sort of sinister eminence by a daring fearlessness and a combinationof shrewdness and luck in evading the consequences of his countless actsof aggression. Added to this, his enforced outlawry and the exploits,half mythical, wherewith rumour credited him during that period, hadthrown a kind of halo around him in the eyes of his wild, predatoryfellow-tribesmen. Nominally he lived under and was responsible to theSirdar Yar Hussain Khan, who was chief over a large section of thepowerful Marri tribe; actually he was responsible to nobody in the wideworld. His own particular following was made up of all the "tough"characters of the tribe, which is saying much, for the Marris bore thereputation of numbering in their midst some very "tough" characters.

  The saw relative to the endowment of anybody with a sufficiency of ropewas beginning to hold good in the matter of Umar Khan. Things weregoing badly with him. He had been obliged to be more than liberal withhis ill-gotten gains in order to retain the adherence of his following,and the shoe was beginning to pinch. Then his tribal chief had givenhim a hint to sit tight; in short, had given him two alternatives--either to behave himself or clear out.

  He had about concluded to embrace the latter of these--and the motivewhich had led him up to this conclusion was dual--and akin to that whichtells with like effect upon men far more civilised than the Baluchiex-outlaw. Umar Khan was hard up; likewise he was hipped. He wasperfectly sick of sitting still. Times were too peaceful altogether.So he sold what few possessions he had left, and with the proceeds laidin a stock of Snider rifles and ammunition.

  Umar Khan sat in his village at sunrise. It was the hour of prayer, andseveral of the faithful, dotted about, were devoutly prostratingthemselves, in the most approved fashion; indeed Umar himself had onlyjust finished the performance of his devotions, for your Moslem is alogician in such matters, and has no idea of heaping up great damnationto himself by committing two sins instead of one, as would be the casewere he to omit the prescribed devotion simply because he had just cutsomebody's throat. The low, flat, mud-walled houses were in keepingwith the surroundings--looking indeed as if they had but been dumpeddown and left to dry, like other piles of earth and stones which hadrolled down the arid slopes and remained where they fell. A flock ofblack goats and fat-tailed sheep, mingled together, was scattered overthe plain, though where they could find sustenance in such a desert,Heaven alone knew. Camels, too, were stalking around, also making whatseemed an ironical attempt at browsing.

  The sun had just risen beyond the far off limit of the desert plain,tinging blood-red the line of jagged peaks shooting skyward behind thevillage. Umar Khan sat in gloomy silence, smoking a narghileh, and,like most Orientals, indulging in much expectoration. His grim,hawk-like face, with the shaggy hanging brows meeting over his hookednose, looked more cruel and repulsive than ever, as he stroked hisbeard, or pulled at the long black tresses, which hung down on each sideof his face. Then he looked up. A fellow-tribesman was coming towardshim. Umar Khan's glance now lit up with animation. The man came to himand sat down. Their talk was short, but the ex-outlaw's expression ofcountenance grew positively radiant, as the new arrival went onunfolding his tidings.

  Umar Khan rose and ordered his best horse to be saddled. As he rose, itmight have been noticed that he suffered from a slight limp. Thentaking with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself--if thatwere possible--he rode forth.

  For many hours they fared onward, avoiding the more frequented ways, andtravelling over precipitous mountain path and through wild _tangi_, byroutes well known to themselves, halting at convenient places to restand water their horses. All had rifles, as well as their curvedtulwars, and this savage band of hook-nosed, scowling copper-colouredruffians, armed to the teeth, looked about as forbidding, even terrorstriking a crew as the peaceable wayfarer would _not_ wish to meet--sayhalf way through a _tangi_ where there was precious little room to passeach other.

  The sun was now considerably past the meridian, and at length the band,at a word from Ihalil Mohammed--the man who had brought the news whichhad led to this undertaking--halted amid some rock overlooking a broadhigh-road.

  Far away along its dusty length a speck appeared, growing larger as itdrew rapidly nearer, until it took the shape of a vehicle, containingbut one man, and he the driver. It was an ordinary "gharri," or hackneycab. To meet this Ihalil and four others now rode down.

  "Salaam, brother," they exclaimed, drawing up across the road.

  "Salaam, Sirdar sahib," returned the driver, in tremulous tones, turningpale at the sight of these fierce armed figures barring his way. Theman was an ordinary specimen of the low caste Hindu, and as such held inutter contempt by these stalwart sons of the desert, and in repulsion asa heathen and an idolater.

  "Who art thou, brother; and whither faring?" queried Ihalil.

  The man replied, in quaking tones, that he was but a poor"gharri-wallah" hired to meet a certain holy _mullah_ who was travellingfrom Shalalai to a village away far out in the desert. He was to bringhim on a stage of his journey, and expected to meet him not far fromthat point.

  "Good. Now turn thine old box on wheels out of the road and follow towhere we shall lead thee," commanded Ihalil.

  The poor wretch dared not so much as hesitate, and presently the ricketyold rattle trap was drawn up behind the rocks. At sight of the rest ofthe band the miserable Hindu gave himself up for dead.

  "Salaam, Sirdar sahib," he faltered, cowering before the grim stare ofUmar Khan.

  The latter then questioned him, in process of which one of thefreebooters stole up behind, his tulwar raised. The badly scared"gharri-wallah," his eyes starting from his head, had no attention tospare from the threatening scowl and searching questions of Umar Khan;and of danger from behind was utterly unconscious. Then, at a nod fromUmar Khan, down came the tulwar upon the neck of the doomed Hindu.

  It was badly aimed and did not sever the head, but cut far and deep intothe neck and shoulder. The miserable wretch fell to the ground, delugedwith a great spout of blood, but yet wailing dismally in agony andterror. In a moment two more tulwars swung through the air, and thesufferings of the murdered man--literally cut to pieces--were over,though his limbs still beat the ground in convulsive struggles.

  Umar Khan spat in derision, while the other barbarians laughed likedemons over this atrocious deed. The murderers wiped their swords onthe garments of their victim, and examined the keenly-ground edgessolicitously, lest they should be in any way notched or turned. But nowtheir attention was diverted. Another speck was growing larger andlarger on the road, this time advancing from the direction in whichtheir late victim had been proceeding. Drawing nearer it soon tookshape. Another "gharri" similar to the one whose driver they hadslaughtered.

  The whole band rode down to meet it. Besides the driver it containedanother man.

  "Peace, my sons," said the latter as they drew up.

  "And on you peace," returned Umar Khan. "But first--for this dog.Hold--Alight, both of ye."

  There was that about the aspect of these armed brigands that would admitof no hesitation. Both obeyed. This driver, too, was a low casteHindu. His "fare" was an old man, white-bearded, and wearing a greenturban.

  No sooner were both fairly out of the "gharri," than Ihalil Mohammedrode at the Hindu and cut him down. Others fell upon him with theirtulwars, and the miserable wretch, like his f
ellow-craftsman, wasliterally hewn to pieces then and there. With savage shouts themurderers waved their bloodstained weapons aloft, curvetting theirsteeds around the survivor.

  The latter turned pale. Quick as thought, however, he had drawn avolume of the Koran from beneath his garments, and placed it upon hishead.

  "La illah il Allah"--he began.

  "--Mohammed er rasool Allah," [Note 2] chorused the blood thirstysavages, as though in one fierce war shout, turning to hack once more atthe mangled carcase of the miserable Hindu.

  "Hearken, my father," said Umar Khan, pointing his rifle at thetraveller. "A true believer is safe at the hands of other believers.But, father, delay not to deliver over the seven hundred rupees whichare in thy sash."

  The other turned paler still.

  "Seven hundred rupees?" he exclaimed, holding up his hands. "Whatshould a poor _mullah_ do with such a sum?"

  "Thou hast said it, my father. What indeed?" sneered Umar Khan. "Whatindeed, save as alms for the poor, and the debtors and the insolvent, asenjoins the holy Koran? And such thou seest before thee. Wherefore wewill receive them, father, and pray the blessing of Allah, and a richplace in the seventh heaven for thee and thine."

  "Do ye not fear God, O impious ones, that ye would rob His servant?"said the _mullah_, waxing wroth in his desperation.

  "We fear nobody," returned Umar Khan, with an evil sneer. "Yet, myfather, delay not any longer, lest this gun should go off by accident."

  "Wah--wah!" sighed the _mullah_. "Be content my children--it may be yeare poorer than I. Receive this packet, and the blessing of a servantof the Prophet go with it. And now I will proceed upon my way."

  "Wait but a few moments," replied Umar Khan, receiving the bag which theother tendered him, and which he immediately handed to Ihalil with oneword--"Count!"

  "It may not be, for the hour of evening prayer draws near. Peace bewith you, my children." And he made as though to move on.

  "We will say it together then," replied Umar Khan, barring the way."What is this? Two hundred and fifty rupees? Two more packets hastthou forgotten, my father, and--delay not, for the hour of eveningprayer draws near."

  There was a grim, fell significance in the speaker's tone andcountenance. The _mullah_ no longer hesitated. With almost tremblingalacrity he drew forth the remaining bags, which being counted, werefound to contain the exact sum named.

  "We give thee five rupees as an alms, my father," said Umar Khan,tendering him that amount. Gloomily the _mullah_ pocketed it. "Andsurely God is good to thee, that in these days thou hast been able torelieve the necessities of Umar Khan."

  A start of surprise came over the face of the other, at the mention ofthe name of the dreaded ex-outlaw. He had more than a shrewd suspicionthat but for his sacred office he would be now even as his Hindudriver--which went far to console him for the loss of his substance.

  "Wah--wah!" he moaned, sitting down by the roadside. "My hard earnedsubstance which should comfort my old age--all gone! all gone!"

  "The faithful will provide for thine old age, my father. And now, peacebe with thee, for we may not tarry here. But,"--sinking his voice to abloodcurdling whisper--"it is well to give alms in secret, for he whoshould boast too loud of having bestowed them upon Umar Khan, not eventhe holy sanctuary of Mecca would avail to shelter him."

  "Blaspheme not, my son," cried the _mullah_, affecting great horror, andputting his fingers to his ears--though, as a matter of fact, thewarning was one which he thoroughly understood.

  They left him seated there by the roadside, despondent over his loss.They left the two mangled bodies of their victims to the birds andbeasts of prey, and gave vent to their glee as they dashed off, inshouts and blood thirsty witticisms. They were in high good humour,those jovial souls. They had slain a couple of human beings--that wasto keep their hands in. They had robbed another of seven hundredrupees--that would replenish the wasted exchequer for a time; and nowthey cantered off to see if they could not do a little more in bothlines--and the goal for which they were heading was the Kachin valley.

  Umar Khan had burnt his boats behind him.

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  Note 1. To lend additional terror to capital punishment in the eyes ofMoslems on the northern border, the dead bodies of those executed forfanatical murder were sometimes burned.

  Note 2. "God is the God of gods--Mohammed the Prophet of God."--TheMoslem confession of faith.