One morning, therefore, Alladâd Khan and his neighbours were greatly concerned at seeing their hákim's famous white mare grazing untethered on a piece of grass on the outskirts of the village. This meant a fine or a whipping at least for some one, so the party resolved to drive the animal to the next village, and let the people there bear the brunt of their lord's wrath. The mare was accordingly turned into the road, but Alladâd Khan and his followers had not gone far before they saw Nicholson himself fastened with ropes to a tree!
"They saw Nicholson himself fastened with ropes to a tree."
When, with trembling hands, they went to release him, Nicholson asked in a stern voice, "Whose land is this I am on?"
"It belongs to Alladâd Khan, my lord," replied one or two bolder than the rest. The piece of ground was the actual plot in dispute between uncle and nephew. At this assertion Alladâd Khan emphatically denied ownership. "It is not mine, indeed, my lord," he protested, "but my nephew's. Nay, of a truth, it is not mine!"
"Will you swear it is so?" demanded Nicholson. And Alladâd Khan swore by all he held most sacred that the land was his nephew's. This was all that Nicholson wanted; and, having now several witnesses to the other's statement, he permitted himself to be unbound.
The breaking-in of these "fluttered folk and wild" among whom he was thus cast took Nicholson four years, but the work was done thoroughly. Throughout the vast district between the Indus and the Sulaiman Mountains his name alone was sufficient to inspire awe and bring the refractory to reason. For a long time after he had left Bannu, it is said, the village people would wake at night trembling, declaring they heard the tramp of "Nikalseyn's war-horse." And Waziri mothers would still their crying babes by saying that he was coming to them, though by thus holding him up as a bogey they did Nicholson an injustice, for he was ever tender and kind with children.
There is significance, too, in a note which Mr. Thorburn makes in his interesting volume on Bannu. Often, he says, when sitting in his court he would be puzzled by the lying of the parties in the suit before him, and in despair would give the disputants "a few minutes' freedom of tongue." Then he would be amused by hearing one of them saying, "Turn your back to the sahib, and let him see it still wealed with the whipping Nikalseyn gave you!" Whereupon the other would retort, "You need not talk, for your back is well scored also!"
Of the nature of the people with whom he had to deal Nicholson once told a story which is grimly characteristic. A little Waziri boy having been brought before him on a charge of poisoning food, he asked the young culprit if he knew that it was wrong to kill people. The boy acknowledged that it was wrong to kill with a knife or a sword. "But why?" persisted Nicholson. "Because," was the prompt answer, "the blood leaves marks!"