Gunboat and Gun-runner: A Tale of the Persian Gulf

by T. T. Jeans

Well, even Mr. Scarlett could not be expected to train those poor ignorant fishermen in three or four days. I do believe that they imagined that all that was necessary was to put a cartridge in the rifle, show it the object, and pull the trigger. Allah would look after the bullet. If he did not mean it to hit—well it wouldn't, that was all—and Mr. Scarlett and Jaffa had not sufficient command of their language to make them believe otherwise.

Even after this fatuous display the sheikh confidently told Jaffa that he pitied any poor Bedouins who tried to attack his town—town! mind you; not collection of hovels, as it actually was. His own house and the dome-shaped well were the only two structures you could lean against without risk of falling through the sides. He and his silly simpletons of villagers really believed that they were now a formidable tribe—with their rifles, their new finery, their sacks of dates, and the flocks of sheep the Arab traders had given them in exchange for the camels. They suffered badly from "swollen heads", were too proud to fish, and loafed about the village with their rifles and silver-mounted daggers—doing nothing. The women were just as foolish over the stores of food and the unaccustomed finery they now had, and all had lost any fear of the Bedouins swooping down through the gap to take revenge.

Every camel except one had been taken away, and that one the sheikh kept for his own use, fitting it out with the gorgeous trappings belonging to Jassim's own riding camel—the one I had killed on the zigzag path. When he was perched, insecurely and uncomfortably, on top of all this splendour, he thought himself the finest fellow in the world, in spite of the fact that the brute could only be induced to move, and that only at a snail's pace, by being pulled along by his halter.

He used to mount it and come along with me when I went shooting along the mountain slopes; but he could never keep up with me, however much the attendant villagers hauled on the head-rope.

One evening, as our fortnight's stay was drawing to a close, we saw from the Bunder Abbas two little dots moving rapidly down from the mouth of the ravine. As they drew nearer we saw that they were two camels, and that a man was riding the first and leading the other. Darkness swallowed them up; but next morning there were three camels kneeling under the shade of the dark-green "nabac" trees alongside the well—the sheikh's and the two strange ones. And whilst we were wondering who the man could have been, a boat paddled off with a letter for Mr. Scarlett. As he caught sight of the handwriting he actually seemed to shrivel; the lines in his face became drawn and haggard, his eyes positively sank into their sockets, and that horrid, frightened, muddy colour spread over his face and down his neck. I knew then who had written the letter—Jassim.

Mr. Scarlett staggered into the cabin and slid the door across. It seemed hours before he opened it—just a crack—and beckoned to me.

"Same thing, sir, only more threatening. Says he will take it off without hurting. That he must have it, and he'll give me still more money."

I had not the patience to try to persuade him to run the slight risk and get rid of the beastly bracelet once and for all, so said nothing. It was he who at last, trembling and sweating with fright, suggested that Jassim should be allowed to come on board and talk things over—"if—if you'll stand by with a revolver, sir, and kill him if he tries to seize it."

It was the only sensible course to take; and, later on, Jassim did come aboard.

What a grand-looking fellow he was in spite of his age, and how he must have hated me and the Bunder Abbas for the part we had played in capturing his caravan! If he did, he showed no sign, salaaming to me as to an equal. I took him up to our little deck, to Mr. Scarlett, and the two began yarning very earnestly, whilst I stood by to see fair play. Jassim was evidently explaining how he proposed to take off the bracelet, and produced two pairs of thin pincers—the same idea that my chum and I had suggested a hundred times.