Page 156 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

together, with sails set and long lines of oars breaking the water,
they bore down on him.
As the enemy ships closed in, Rahmah stood on the high poop
of his ship with his eight-year-old son at his side, and his favourite
slave, Tarrar, behind him, who told his master that the commander
of the nearest boat was Shaikh Ahmed, son of Shaikh Sulman.
Shrill above the din of battle, the sound of cannon and musket
shots, the drums and war songs, and the creaking of oars, Rah-
mah’s voice screamed insults at the son of his enemy.
The two great sailing dhows crashed together, with a screech
of rending sails and sharp reports of snapping wood. The men
of Bahrain, led by Shaikh Ahmed, armed with a sword and a
little round shield, slowly fought their way over the sides, and on
to the deck of Ghatruslidy hacking a passage through the pirates
who were defending the ship, using swords and spears and dag­
gers. Many men perished, and the blood ran down the decks
and stained the sea around the two ships.
Fighting desperately, the pirates were slowly forced back, foot
by foot, towards their blind leader who was on the poop above
the powder magazine. As the fight raged, Rahmah heard the
tale of it, shouted to him by the slave, Tarrar, how one by one the
pirates fell before the swords of the boarders. The fighting
swayed to and fro, but always the pirates lost ground. The enemy
reached the foremast. They were among Rahmah’s bodyguard,
closing in on him. He, Rahmah, the Jalahamah, the scourge of
the Gulf, was about to become the captive of the Khalifah.
Crying out the words of Queen Zabba, ‘with my own hand,
not by the hand of Amr’, Rahmah snatched a firebrand, and
plunged it deep into the powder magazine below him.
There was a vivid flash of fire, a roar as of thunder as the two
ships burst apart. When the pall of smoke lifted, nothing re­
mained but smoking wreckage. Rahmah, his young son, his
companions, and many of the enemy including Shaikh Ahmed of
Bahrain, were dead. So passed Rahmah bin Jabr al Jalahamah
‘the personification of an Arab sea robber’.

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