Our horses began to die off in alarming numbers. The grass on the slopes of the hills surrounding Khwash was of course quickly eaten up, and we were reduced practically to nothing, not possessing even straw as fodder. To make matters worse there were still three months to wait before we could hope to obtain straw from the barley we had sown. Altogether the position was beginning to be of an alarming nature, and I began to wonder whether, though Jiand and all his men had not been able to turn us out of Khwash, we might not be driven out by slow starvation.
Something had to be done and done quickly. No stone must be left unturned to save us from this pass, and I cast about for means of feeding the animals other than by these failing supplies from India. It was then that I suddenly remembered Jiand's crops at Kamalabad. When, on the first occasion, he had surrendered there I had spared not only the lives of himself and his followers but his crops as well. Those crops I decided to call upon him to share with us now.
Accordingly, in the early part of June, I sent for him, and in a few days he obeyed the summons, but was obviously reluctant, and very morose.
I thereupon frankly told him the position with regard to the animals, and said that I knew he must have vast quantities of bhusa from his crops, for the bulk of which he could have no use, and asked him to sell it.
The old villain refused point blank. I swallowed my anger as best I could, and told him I would give four times the market price for it if he would send it at once.
But he was obstinate, and persisted in his refusal, in spite of all my offers.
As a matter of fact I had been told repeatedly that it was Jiand's one hope and ambition that I would try conclusions with him in his own part of the country, where his secret hiding places, and defences amidst the difficult hill country, were only known to his own tribe. Moreover, so I was also told, Halil Khan was continually urging him to force me to fight. Halil Khan himself was itching to wipe out the humiliation and discredit they had both suffered as an outcome of being bluffed twice when they could actually have wiped us out.
Indignant as I was there was nothing to be done but to let him go. I had promised him safe conduct to and fro; I, therefore, had no alternative.
But there was still another stone that could be turned. About five miles distant from the valley of Kamalabad, Jiand's stronghold, lay another fertile valley, Karsimabad, the property of an old Chief named Murad. This old man had at one time been the leader of the Sarhad, until Jiand had deposed him from his leadership and assumed it himself. Although Murad was outwardly on friendly terms with Jiand—he was not strong enough to show himself otherwise—I had heard many hints of the old ex-Chief's jealousy of and resentment towards Jiand.