The Khan of Kelát very rarely leaves his palace, and is seldom seen abroad in the streets of Kelát except on Fridays, when he goes to the mosque on foot, attended by an escort armed to the teeth. He is said to live in constant dread of assassination, for his cruel, rapacious character has made him universally detested in and around the capital. His one thought in life is money and the increase of his income, which, with the yearly sum allowed him by the British Government, may be put down at considerably over £30,000 per annum. A thorough miser, the Khan does not, like most Eastern potentates, pass the hours of night surrounded by the beauties of the harem, but securely locked in with his money-bags in a small, comfortless room on the roof of his palace.
[Illustration: THE KHAN OF KELÁT]
There is not the smallest doubt in my mind that Russian influence is, indirectly, being brought to bear on the Court of Kelát. But Mir Khudadad may be said to have no policy. As the French say, "Il change sa nationalité comme je change de chemise," and is to be bought by the highest bidder.
Although the Khan's subjects are heavily taxed, there is no protection whatsoever of life or property in or around Kelát. Theft is, according to the penal code, punished by fine and imprisonment, murder and adultery by death; but the law is subject to great modifications. In a word, the Khan is the law, and so long as a man can afford to pay or bribe him handsomely, he may commit the most heinous offences with impunity.
Two instances of the way in which justice is carried out happened just before I arrived at Kelát. In the one, a young Baluch woman was found by her husband, a soldier, under circumstances which admitted no doubt of her infidelity. Upon discovery, which took place at night, the infuriated husband rushed off to the guard-house for his weapon. During his absence the woman urged her lover, who was well armed, to meet and slay him in the darkness. Under pretence of so doing the gay Lothario left his paramour, but, fearful of consequences, made off to Quetta.
On his return home the husband used no violence, simply handing his wife over to the guard to be dealt with according to law. Brought before the Khan the next day, she was lucky enough to find that monarch in a good temper. Her beauty probably obtained the free pardon accorded her, and an order that her husband was also to condone her offence. The latter said not a word, took her quietly home in the evening, and cut her throat from ear to ear. The Khan, on hearing of the murder next day, made no remonstrance, nor was the offender punished. He was an Afghan.
The second case is even more disgraceful. One of the Khan's own suite, a well-known libertine and drunkard, contracted an alliance with a young girl of eighteen. He had endeavoured in vain to marry her younger sister, almost a child, and so beautiful that she was known for many miles round the city as the "Pearl of Kelát."
Six weeks after marriage this ruffian, in a fit of drunken frenzy caused by jealousy, almost decapitated his wife with a tulwar, and afterwards mutilated her body past recognition. The shrieks of the poor woman having summoned the neighbours, he was seized, bound, and led before the Khan, who at once sentenced him to death. The execution was fixed for sunrise the following day. At midnight, however, a messenger appeared at the gates of the Mir with a canvas bag containing two thousand rupees. "Tell him he is free," said the ruler of Kelát. "And if he sends in another thousand, I will order the younger sister to marry him." The money was paid, and the poor child handed over to the tender mercies of the human devil who had so ruthlessly butchered her sister.
I have mentioned that Azim Khan showed me a sword of beautiful workmanship. It had, the very morning of my visit to the palace, cut down and hacked to pieces a waiting-maid, not sixteen years old, in the Khan's harem. I myself saw the corpse of the poor girl the same evening, as it was being carried outside the walls for interment. [C]
This, then, is the state of things existing at Kelát, not a hundred miles from the British outposts; this the enlightened sovereign who has been made "Companion of the Star of India," an order which, among his own people, he affects to look upon with the greatest contempt.