At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative

by John Alfred Gray

On the boy’s thigh there was bandaged a wretched little splint, quite useless if the bone were broken. I soon had it off, and found that the bone was broken in the lower third. It took some little time to have a long splint made and to put it on. Several Page boys, who were living in other khirgars, came in, and also the official whose duty it is to look after the boys. When I was putting on the splint, I noticed the scar of a bullet in the upper part of the boy’s thigh. I enquired how he had got it, and then I heard the story of the attempt upon the life of the Amîr which had taken place the year before.

His Highness was reviewing the troops on the plains outside the town of Mazar. The pain of his Sciatica was troubling him so that he was not on horseback, but sat in an arm-chair, which was placed on a large square mound or platform some four or five feet high, artificially made. His Highness sat smoking a cigarette, the Commander-in-Chief, Page boys, and officials were grouped around his chair, and seated on the ground by his side was Captain Griesbach, C.I.E., the geologist.

An Herati regiment was passing, and suddenly one of the men stepped out of the line, threw up his rifle, and fired point-blank at the Amîr. Just at that moment His Highness leaned over to speak to Captain Griesbach, and the bullet whizzed under his arm, through the chair back, and caught Samander just below the hip.

The Amîr continued what he was saying without a pause, and still smoked the cigarette. The Commander-in-Chief sprang instantly from the mound and rushed on the man to cut him down.

Then the Amîr shouted “Stop!” But it was too late, the Commander-in-Chief’s sword flew to pieces on the man’s head, and the bystanders instantly dispatched him.

The Amîr, presumably, wished to go into the matter, for the Herati was a known shot, and to enquire the motive of his action with a view of determining if he were alone in the plot. But whatever may have been suspected I never heard that anything definite was found out. It was, however, an evil day for the officers of that regiment.

Samander receives a larger pay than any of the other Page boys, and is naturally somewhat of a favourite.

It was two hours before the splint was made and properly put on, and at the end of it I was quite done up. I found that the fact of my arrival had been reported to the Amîr, for His Highness most kindly ordered the palanquin of one of the Princes to be brought to the khirgar to convey me back to my house. I visited Samander once or twice after that to see that everything was all right, but my temperature began creeping up in a way that was not at all satisfactory, so that I had to give up going and simply trust to reports from the Hindustanis.

An Earthquake.

We had an earthquake a few days after this, at half-past five in the afternoon. The bed shook and the door and windows rattled, but it was quite a slight affair compared with the Kabul earthquakes. I called out to the Armenian, who was in the next room playing cards, to ask if he felt the shock. He came in to know if I wanted anything.