THE RUSE OF A PERSIAN PRINCE. How he Convicted the Murderers of an Englishman.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 188, 22 January 1887, Page 5

THE RUSE OF A PERSIAN PRINCE. How he Convicted the Murderers of an Englishman.

On the side of the high road to Shiraz, thirty miles before the city is reached, going north, stands a bare pole. This marks the place where the body of Sergeant Collins was found after his murder. Sergeant Collins was an inspector of the telegraph line, a man of great personal bravery. Accompanied by his wife, two servants and two muleteers, he started on his inspection duty. Collins was hardly convalescent from a fever attack when he started, and he had no choice in travelling but to lie on a mattress flung on a loaded mule. At early dawn, one day, a muleteer tmddenly cried, "Sahib, they have blocked the road." and, looking ahead, the sergeant saw some men in front who were covering him with their guns At the same moment these men ordered him to dismount. Now, the sergeant was the best shot in Persia. "Be off!" ho shouted, firing hie revolver twice. The robbers rushed in, firing as they came, and Collins was hit in twu places, death being instantaneous. After beating the lifeless body with their iron-headed sticks, the robbers blindfolded and carried off the wife and the two servants, detaining them ru a dell till after midnight. At the persistent instigation of the English Minister at Teheran, the Persian authorities arrested the three principal robbers. Another of them committed suicide to avoid capture ; another had died from a gunshot wound, apparently inflicted by Collins. But the Persian authorities, though they had got the criminals in gaol, seei led very Ictn to bring them to justice But at length Mirza Hassan AH Khan, C. S. L,, our agent at Shiraz, succeeded in goading the Prince-Governor, H. R. H. Zil-es-Sultan, into trying the prisoners, The proceedings were very curious. There was no doubt of the guilt of the men, but there were no witnesses of the murder. The sergeant wa° dead ; his wife and two servants had been frightened out of their wits, and the muleteer declared that he could remember nothing. The Zil-es-Sultan, finding that the English Minister would nob remain satisfied, ordered the robbers to be brought before him. The Prince-Governor himself embodied the law. Half a dozen courtiers lolled against the wall, their arms respectfully crossed upon their breasts. Seated on a silk mattre°s in a corner of the room, his back supported by gold embroidered cushions, the young prince twiddled his moustache, or played with the jeweled hilt of his satire, or toyed with the buckle of priceless brilliants which formed the central ornament of his plain leather waistbelt. The three men were dressed as villagers usually are, in tall felt caps and long felt coats. When they were hustled into the hall of audience they we*e still heavily ironed, for these men are often desperate criminals, and would not hesitate for a moment to murder their gaolers if they thought they would thereby secure a chance of escape. On entering the royal presence they bow almost to the ground. " Salaam !" they shout in a kind of chorus ; your villager or tribesman never speaks, he always shouts. " How do you like prison ?" says the Prince, nodding to them with a smile. In reply, the bandits asserted their innocence, calling at every sentence upon Heaven and the Prophets. " Are we not harmless tribesmen, we who live in your Royal Highnese's shadow? May we be your sacrifice !" The Prince still smiles blandly. " Ah, my friends," Bays he, " I, too, am a Mussulman. We are all Mussulmen here ; and — and, in fact, an unbeliever more or less doesn't much matter. You have truly done a good deed. I shall not really punish out reward you. That you killed the Feringhi there is, of course, no doubt j and so I must Dunish you nominally. What I propose to do is to cut off a joint of one finger of each of you, But what is that? Nothing. Your dresses of honour are ready, lou will put them on and will be instantly liberated. And now, my children/ says the smiling Prince, " tell me all about it. How did you manage it, eh ?" The astonished prisoners received this speech with a burst of joy. All shouting at once, they hastened to give the Prince full particulars. "The European fired twico from one pistol— may we be your sacrifice ! — and then we all fired together, rushing in on him. He was but a European — may your shadow never be leas ! We trust in the clemency of your Royal Highness I May we be your sacrifice I" The smile faded from the face of the young Prince-Governor, his likeness to the Shah, his father, becoming very apparent as his countenance darkened into ferocity. He had got at the truth ; and without more ado, he nodded with appropriate significance to his Chief of Police, the Farrash-bashi, a burly, black-bearded man, who stood behind the criminals. The prisoners were removed ; they were hurried into the public square, in which the palace stands, and there their throats were cut. The bodies lay exposed till sunset, a terror to evildoers. A red granite tablet in one of the Chris- j tian churches at Julfa, subscribed for by the engineer officers and non-commissioned officers in Persia, commemorates the death of Collins.