It is better
therefore to kill the first Englishman." Dilawur was consequently
sent back to prison, and a meeting of the mullahs decided that he should
be stoned to death as an apostate. "It must be the will of God," said
this brave man when the news was brought him, and prepared to meet his
fate.
[10] _Shikar_, sport.
But not yet was his time fulfilled. For two months he and his travelling
companions were kept in prison, probably to enable the Mehtar to
correspond with his agents in Peshawur. The reply received was evidently
not in favour of extreme measures for the strong arm of the British was
notoriously far-reaching, and serious trouble might ensue if the subadar
were killed. The Mehtar therefore decided to release the prisoners, and
to give them such assistance as they needed in getting away.
On their way towards India the little party got as far as the great
range of mountains, some twenty-four thousand feet in height, which
divide Chitral from Bajaur, and attempted to cross it by the Nuksan
Pass, the Pass of Death. For four days and nights they struggled on,
through the ever deepening snow and ever increasing cold. Dilawur
Khan's comrade, Ahmed Jan, was the first to die; and then, on the fourth
night, the brave old soldier himself gave out, and as he was dying he
called to him one of the survivors, and said: "Should any of you reach
India alive, go to the Commissioner of Peshawur and say 'Dilawur Khan
of the Guides is dead'; and say also that he died faithful to his salt,
and happy to give up his life in the service of the Great Queen.
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