There was a Pathan, a Mohammedan, in a Hindu village, employed by the
village moneylender as a debt-collector,
Which is not a popular trade.
He lived alone among Hindus, and - so ran the charge in the lower
court - he wilfully broke the caste of a Hindu villager by forcing on him
forbidden Mussulman food, and when that pious villager would have taken
him before the headman to make reparation, the godless one drew his
Afghan knife and killed the headman, besides wounding a few others. The
evidence ran without flaw, as smoothly as well-arranged cases should,
and the Pathan was condemned to death for wilful murder. He appealed
and, by some arrangement or other, got leave to state his case
personally to the Court of Revision. 'Said, I believe, that he did not
much trust lawyers, but that if the sahibs would give him a hearing, as
man to man, he might have a run for his money.
Out of the jail, then, he came, and, Pathan-like, not content with his
own good facts, must needs begin by some fairy-tale that he was a secret
agent of the government sent down to spy on that village. Then he warmed
to it. Yes, he was that money-lender's agent - a persuader of the
reluctant, if you like - working for a Hindu employer. Naturally, many
men owed him grudges. A lot of the evidence against him was quite true,
but the prosecution had twisted it abominably.
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