Page 152 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

an enemy with his boneless arm. He drew his dagger, and sup­
porting the elbow of his damaged left arm with his right hand, lie
grasped the dagger in the clenched fist of his left arm, and drew
it backwards and forwards, saying that ‘lie would like to have the
cutting of as many throats as he could effectively open with this
left hand*. His words were greeted with applause. It is not
perhaps surprising that Rahmah claimed to be the friend of the
British.
In June 1816, the Sultan of Muscat, Said bin Sultan, made
another attempt to subjugate Bahrain. He had with him, Rah-
mah and his pirate fleet, and three ships from Bushirc, provided
by the Prince of Shiraz, carrying Persian mercenaries from the
coast. It was a strong force, but not an auspicious expedition.
Bruce, the Resident, had recently been in Bahrain, where he
found the Khalifah well prepared to resist invasion, and he had
tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade the Sultan from attacking the
islands. Rahmah and his pirates were not easy people to handle,
and the Persians, who themselves had aspirations to the ownership
of Bahrain, were unlikely to view with pleasure the prospect of
Bahrain becoming a dependency of Muscat.
The Sultan’s army landed on one of the islands, according to
the local history it was Sitra, but some writers suggest that it was
Arad. For two days, there was no sign of opposition, and the
Sultan said to Rahmah, ‘your Utubi seem to be dead’. Rahmah,
himself from the Utubi tribe, replied: ‘if their flags arc not seen
tomorrow morning, then you may believe that they are dead’.
At daybreak next morning, the flags of the Khalifah appeared
among the date trees. ‘See’, said Rahmah, ‘there are my Utubi,
now put your trust in God!’ There was a short fierce battle, in
which the Muscat forces were badly beaten, and driven back to
their boats, leaving many casualties on the field, including the
Sultan’s younger brother, Hamed. The defeat of the Sultan was
partly due to the treachery of the Persian troops, who went over
to the enemy during the engagement. The Persians urged the
Sultan to come to Bushire after his defeat at Bahrain, promising
to supply him with reinforcements to make another attack, but
he discovered that there was a plot to seize him in Bushire, so he
returned to Muscat. Again, Rahmah urged him to make another
effort to take Bahrain, but the Sultan refused at that time to do so.
The political scene changed again. The Persians adopted a
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