Page 154 - Gertrude Bell (H.V.F.Winstone)

i38 GERTRUDE BELL
in the process of murdering his uncle, the Regent Zamil ibn
Subhan, with Turkish connivance. Zamil was a level-headed man
and a good ruler who had been in communication with Ibn Saud
in the hope of restoring peaceful relations between the two great
seats of power in central Arabia. Saud ibn Rashid the twenty-
year-old Amir, and another Saud, a nephew of the Regent, were
together with the raiding party near a place called Abu Ghar when
a slave was instructed to shoot the Regent in the back. As Zamil
was murdered his brothers and slaves tried to ride away but they
were shot down too. And while the murder was talcing place the
Amir and his accomplice rode past without even turning to look.
That all happened in early April. It was perhaps a good thing that
Gertrude did not wait for die Amir’s return. She appealed to his
uncle but Ibrahim insisted that no money could be paid until Ibn
Rashid returned. She told him diat if that were the case she must
go and would be grateful for the services of a rafiq.
She wrote: ‘That morning I must tell you he had returned the
gifts I had sent to him and to his brother Zamil, who is away with
the Amir. Whether he did not think they were sufficient or what
was the reason I do not know.’ She took the gifts with her to her
audience and asked Ibrahim to take them back, which he did.
They can have been of little use to his brother.
Next day I sent a messenger out for my camels — they proved
to be two days away—and again I sat still amusing myself as
best I might and the best was not good. I had no idea what was
in their dark minds concerning me. I sat imprisoned and my
men brought me in rumours from the town... The general
opinion was that the whole business was the work of Fatima,
but why, or how it would end, God alone knew. If they did not
intend to let me go I was in their hands. It was all like a story
in the Arabian Nights, but I did not find it particularly enjoy­
able to be one of the dramatis personae. Turkiyyeh came again
and spent the day with me and next day there appeared the
chief eunuch Sayid —none more powerful than he. He came to
tell me that I could not leave without permission from the
Amir.
Gertrude appealed, protested and drank tea endlessly. She was
allowed to wander in the garden with the male Rashids, ‘all that
have not been murdered by successive usurping amirs’, and in
the end decided to deliver an ultimatum. ‘I wish to leave tomorrow/

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