 |
14. SHAUH SHUJAU’S EXECUTIONERS.
THESE portraits of Mahommed Shauh, a Ghiljye of Zoormut, and Gowpur, a Populzye of Candahar, give but an indistinct notion of the truly grotesque and demoniacal appearance of the King’s “Nasｓaukchibaushis,” or executioners. To judge of them correctly, they should be viewed in a body of some hundreds, dressed in crimson jackets, and bearing on their heads their high fantastic caps of every conceivable semblance. Some are ornamented with huge ears like asses, or spikes like those of porcupines, while others take the form of goat and buffalo horns, and many are conical, spiral, or bell-shaped. These caps are all more or less decorated with rude figures and devices, some bearing a spear-head as an emblem of superior rank.
The seated executioner was a gentleman by birth, who rode before the Sovereign. In his hand is the painted wand, surmounted by a bird, indicative of his being the head of a family. This fashion of dress is of very remote origin, and, I have been told, has been derived from a practice observed in the times of the ancient Roman Emperors, whose courtiers assumed this extravagant costume. If the dress alone of these people strike the beholder with astonishment, when seen in their peaceable vocation of running breathlessly before the Shauh, as they clear the way with staves and shouts, how must they chill the Christian man with horror when pursuing their murderous calling! They seldom kill thoroughly, but rip up, hack and saw the unhappy victim consigned to their knives, and leave the quivering body to public exposure. None dare to make death sure, or render succour, for these sufferings are supposed to act as an example to others, and make atonement for sins committed. At the first taking of Ghuznee seventy Afghaun prisoners were, by the King’s order, summoned to the presence. On the Shauh upbraiding them as rebels, one, more exasperated than the rest, stabbed a “Peishkhidmut” in open court, but not mortally. They were all immediately doomed to death. Taken outside the camp, the wretched creatures were pinioned back to back, and huddled together, some sitting, some standing, some lying prostrate. Then, jumping from one to the other, and brandishing their long, straight knives, the blood-stained ministers of vengeance hacked at their heads and necks at random, resting themselves between times, until the seventy were all butchered. On hearing the Afghauns speak of this “Kutl e roz” (day of slaughter), I made inquiries of Burnes on the subject, and found that the deed had been done, in the Shauh’s camp at Ghuznee, as nearly as possible as I have described it. This was not a solitary instance of the kind during my visit to Caubul. One I cannot omit to mention, as it concerns the murderer of that highly-gifted functionary Dr Lord, the intimate friend of my ill-fated brother, who succeeded him in his appointment.
On the day of the battle of Purwaundurrah, Jaun Khaun, a powerful Coistaun chieftan, who fought under the banner of Dost Mahommed, came over, before the armies met, professedly to make terms with Lord, whom he had found out was in the advance on that day. Received honourably, and invested with the “Khellut” and handsome arms, he was dismissed, on the pledge of interesting himself in persuading the ex-Ameer to deliver himself up to us without bloodshed. On reaching the camp (as proved by witnesses afterwards) the double-dyed traitor boasted of his wickedly-acquired honours, and as he knew the great man (Lord) by sight, and guessed he would pass by a certain “boorj” (bastion) on the hill side upon the battle commencing, proposed to kill him and bring in his head, if the Ameer would, on recovering his throne, give him a certain post of importance. The terms were agreed to, and the assassin, crouching in the solitary watch-tower, waited the arrival of his intended victim. As he darkly prophesied, a party of horsemen galloped by. Marking his man with fatal precision, he shot him, and was seen to pounce upon the prostrate rider, and after probing him with his dagger, and hacking at him, drag his watch and pistols from his belt. The body was afterwards found, naked and mutilated, and, with Broadfoot’s, was buried near my brother’s fort Lughmaunee. We often visited the spot, and beauteous English flowers, “iris all hues, roses and hyacinth, reared high their flourished heads and wrought mosaic” on the soldier’s grave, while “tulip, crocus, and anemone with rich inlay broider’d the ground.” Thus was lost to my brother the best of friends, and to Government a most accomplished and invaluable servant, not, as it was supposed, mid the clashing of sabres or the din of contending armies, but by the hand of a treacherous assassin, whom the victim had just before received in amity and with honour.
Sir A. Burnes, with the warmth of heart so natural to him, cordially condoled with my brother on the loss of so dear a friend, and offered to supply his place, leaving him at the same time in Lord’s appointment until he should hear the pleasure of the Minister, by whom he was at once confirmed in that important post. On assuming political charge of Coistaun, his first step was to bring the murderer to justice. Escorted by Afgaun horse, he drove the wretch, by night attacks and sudden forays, from fort to fort, and eventually succeeded by untiring energy in capturing him. I saw him often sitting in irons and strictly guarded in a room in the gateway of the Ghurree Lughmaunee. Numberless were the suppliants for his life. His sons, dangerous-looking men, and the women of his family, leaving the purdah, or privacy of the Harām, journeyed on foot, with the Koraun on their bare heads (the strongest appeal to the feelings that could be made), to intercede for him, but without success; he who had shown no mercy could expect none. After some months’ imprisonment, the Envoy resolved that the culprit should be tried according to Mahommedan law; an injudicious determination, for the Koraun is at the best of times an indifferent code, and the present appeal to it was but a vain endeavour to convict a man of murder by the very book which said “kill.” On the day appointed for this mock tribunal, “Haukims” (governors), “Syuds” (holy man), “Cauzees” (lawyers), chiefs, “Moollahs,” and learned doctors, crowded from all parts of the valley to the canvass-walled space, carpeted for their reception, where the court was to be held. Captain Rattray, as the accuser, and myself, both in Afghaun costume, were the only Europeans present. It was an anxious scene to participate in. An infidel stood alone in the presence of a vast assembly of bigoted Mahommedan judges, to accuse a faithful follower of the Prophet of the murder of an infidel! We entered the spacious tent, and there, in bearded glory, round it sat the long line of learned men in imperturbable gravity, beads and Korauns in hand, or gently played with scimitar. All wore flowing robes, and turbans of countless shapes and hues, from the round white of the “Moollah,” compact green of the “Syud,” the carelessly-wound cashmere of the chieftain, to the studied yet dégngé tie of the exquisite. Heavily-armed retainers stood grouped behind them, or crowded in dense bodies at the entrance. It was an interesting straggle to witness Christian views of justice in contest with the bigoted prejudices of Islaum’s false religion. On the arrival of the prisoner, all the Afghauns present interchanged civilities with him. The accuser and “Brauddr,” or brother, as they called him, of the murdered man (a title which gave him the enviable privilege of putting the first knife into the accused if found guilty) was instructed to seat himself on the same rug with the accused, so that their relative positions might not favour either. Witnesses were heard, and guilt clearly proved. The “Cauzees” then wagged their heads and beards, quoted verses from Koraun in under tones, nodded and winked together, and asked my brother what was his charge against Jaun Khaun. “Murder,” he said, “which by your own book must be washed out by blood: ‘blood for blood.’” A fearful pause ensued, which was broken by the head “Cauzee,” an immense black-bearded personage, who rose, and pointing to his ponderous Koraun, said, in an exulting tone of voice, “An unbeliever has no power to condemn one of the faithful who has followed to the letter the injunctions of this sacred book” (tapping it vehemently at the same time) “by slaying an infidel. Honours in this world, Paradise and its Houris in the next, await him.” “Raust magoyud” (he speaks truth), “Barikillah” (bravo), were echoed in approval of the sentence through the august assembly. On this my brother rose from his place beside the accused, and said, “As you refuse it, I shall seek justice at the hands of the Paudshauh: “Beroon boobur” (take him away). The assassin, a pale, dejected, and anxious-looking man, with a cast of countenance mild rather than bloodthirsty or forbidding, who during the whole trial had employed himself incessantly in muttering his prayers and counting his beads, was on this conducted back to his prison, and thence to Caubul.
Now ensued an incident that for a moment manifested the fierce resentment against the English which lay hidden in the Afghauns’ breasts. While the court was breaking up, the “Haukim” of Chareekar, a man of great age, and of the first consequence there, strode from his seat across the room, and struck a chief in the face with his clenched fist, for presuming to bear witness against a true believer. For this outbreak my brother for several days refused him an audience. The attendants in the mean time were preparing a grand entertainment. Texts and quibbles, disputes and contention, gave way to feasting. Korauns were buried deep in bosoms and girdles, and, for a time, difference of faith and scruples of religion seemed to be forgotten, as infidel and faithful dipped together in the same dish.
Thus ended a day replete with strange interest, and pictured so vividly in my sense of memory, that so long as the sands of life flow onwards it can never be obliterated. But, to complete the tragedy, when Shauh Shujau heard the decision of the “Cauzees,” that “killing was no murder,” he took the law into his own hands, and commanded Jaun Khaun to be given over to the executioners, who tortured him to death by slow degrees. They ripped him up the ribs with a jagged knife, and left him with bowels exposed. Death claimed him after three days of long-protracted agony.
[Keywords]
nasaqchibashi/ peshkhedmat/ khil‘at/ parda/ hakim/ sayyid/ qazi/ Muhammad Shah Ghilzay/ Zurmat/ Qandahar/ Popalzay/ Ghazni/ Parwan Darra/ Jan Khan/ Kohestan/ burj/ Laghmani/ mulla/ padshah/ Shah Shuja‘ |
NEXT |
|
|
BACK |
|
|