“Who art thou?” said the chief, shortly.
“Mahomed Afa, Waziri,” answered the man.
“Well, what dost thou know?”
“This, O great Sirdar, Murad Afzul. This, this. That as thou didst slay my father Mahomed Jan, so now enter Jehanum by the hand of his son.”
Quick as thought, while uttering these words he had snatched a rifle from the loose, unguarded grasp of the man next to him, and without waiting to raise it to his shoulder discharged the piece well-nigh point blank at the chief. But the ball hummed viciously past, just ruffling the edge of Murad Afzul’s voluminous turban. For the camel, whether acting under the influence of the ineradicable cussedness which is inherent in its species, or irritated by the harsh vociferation right at its ear, had suddenly reached round its head with a resentful grunt, making a vicious snap at the would-be slayer, with the double effect of somewhat marring his aim and moving its rider by just the few inches requisite to the saving of his life. In a twinkling the man was seized.
“Ya, Allah!” he mouthed, struggling furiously in the grasp of those who held him. “Avenge me of this robber-dog, this vulture-bred coward who only strikes those who are too weak to oppose his numbers. Mahomed Prophet! strike him down into the burning pit of Hâwiyat, where his gnawing vitals shall consume for ever and ever.”
The declamatory voice had risen to a wild scream. Murad Afzul, seated on his camel, had not moved throughout the whole scene. Now he spoke.
“So thou art the son of Mahomed Jan, that Waziri thief and enemy of Allah?” he said, gazing down upon his would-be slayer. “Allah is great and His Prophet has rendered thee as unskilful in the use of weapons as others of thy kind. Well, ye twain, father and son, have been parted long enough, so now thou shalt join thine in Jehanum, yet not at once, for I think I will show thee some foretaste of its fires here.”
He signed to those who held the frantic man—then something in the aspect of the latter caused him to change his intention. For he recognised that the Waziri’s mind had given way, in short, that he had become a frenzied maniac, and to harm him as such would be clean contrary to all tribal tradition and sanction. Yet he had no intention of letting him off scot free.
“I will spare him the fire,” he said, “for of that he will have plenty. So—shorten him by the head.”