Page 134 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

regarding all ideas of truce, had indulged in a little piracy, attacking
and capturing several vessels which he sent back to Kas al Khainia.
For this reason, he and his ship were detained at Bushire by the
British, until instructions arrived from Bombay.
The lot of representatives sent by the pirates to negotiate with
the British was not always enviable. A wakil who was sent a
few months previously, returned home, having agreed with the
British to what he thought were favourable terms. The pirates
thought otherwise. The wakil’s beard was plucked out, he was
mounted on a donkey, facing its tail, and driven round the town,
followed by a mob of men and boys, pelting him with filth.
The wakil whom Loch met at Bushire was an old man. He
and his followers were not in custody, but were allowed in the
bazaar under surveillance, in spite of which they had already made
one unsuccessful attempt to escape. When he stayed with the
Bruces at the Residency, it was Loch’s habit to take a walk on
the Hat roof of the building every morning at dawn. Several
times he saw the old wakil steal down to the beach - anyone who
has lived in an Oriental seaside town would guess his purpose -
but in this case he used to take out a little telescope and sweep the
horizon. Loch told Bruce what he had seen, and a stricter watch
was kept on him. One morning Loch saw the wakil on the
shore as usual, so he stayed awhile watching him. As it grew
lighter, three pirate ships became visible on the horizon: Loch
signalled to the Eden, which lay at anchor off'the town, and in no
time, the ship’s boats were lowered, and started in pursuit of the
pirates; but when they saw that they were being followed, the
pirate vessels changed course, and were soon out of sight.
A few days later, Loch discovered that a vessel from Dubai,
whose people were in league with the pirates, had slipped through
one of the passages among the sandbanks and entered the inner
harbour. Dubai is a town on the Arab coast, now the capital of
one of the Trucial Shaikhdoms, which, owing to its position on
the banks of a twisting inlet, is often euphemistically described as
the ‘Venice of the Gulf’.
The Dubai ship was hurriedly unloading her cargo, and Loch
had discovered - though he docs not tell us by what means - that
Shaikh Abdul Rasool, the Shaikh of Bushire, had been bribed to
facilitate the escape of the pirates on board the ship. Loch sig­
nalled to the jEden ordering the pinnace, maimed and armed, under
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