Page 155 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

view, lie became embroiled in a quarrel with one of his neigh­
bours. He ordered his youngest son to take command of his
fleet, and to attack a very much stronger force. The boy was
defeated, and returned a fugitive to his father in Katif. ‘The old
iron-hearted Pirate could not brook the thought that his son j.i
should outlive a defeat and retire in the face of the enemy, even if
the odds were heavily against him.’ Calling him a ‘dastard son
of a dog’ for daring to come back and report a failure, he had
the boy bound and thrown into the sea to drown, as a warning to
his followers. Somehow the boy loosened himself, and lie was £
picked up by a boat several miles astern. For many months,
Rahmah did not know that his son had survived, and when he
did hear, lie never uttered his son’s name again. The son was
killed some years later, during the storming of a fort. % ;<=
It was too much to expect a man of Rahmah’s character and
reputation to adopt a peaceful way of life, and give up piracy and
fighting. It seems that lie did desist from indiscriminate piracy, fig
but he continued to harrass the vessels of his enemies in Bahrain.
Twice the Bahrain Shaikhs tried to come to terms with him, the
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second time in 1823, they agreed to a pact of friendship, but it
only lasted for two years, then hostilities were resumed. The
veteran pirate, scarred with wounds of a hundred fights, now
quite blind, was still a power in the Gulf. He commanded a
formidable fleet, manned by ruthless Arab pirates and his negro
slaves, lately he had enlisted a number of Baluchis to serve under to
him, who were well known in the Gulf as first class fighting
men.
In 1826, Shaikh Abdulla bin Ahmed was cruising with part of
the Bahrain fleet, near the coast of Arabia, when he learned that
Rahmah was on board his ship Ghatrusha in the Bay of Katif,
where many of his followers were living. He himself had settled
again at Dammam. Rahmah could have returned to Dammam
by land, but he decided to do battle with the Khalifah. Believing
himself still invincible, the old man ‘took the garments off the
forearm of endeavour’ as the Arab history has it. He prepared
for action, and his great ship moved slowly away from the walls
of Katif, propelled by the oars of the negro slaves, watched by
the townspeople from the shore. The ship passed through the
bay to the open sea, where the Bahrain fleet was assembled. The
enemy waited for him until he reached the deep water, then all
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