Note 198 — Chapter IV

I am informed that one of Conolly’s inducements to visit Bokhara was the hope of persuading Stoddart outwardly to recant his profession of Mahomedanism. My informant, who was at this time at Caubul, writes: “Arthur Conolly availed himself of a certain margin left him in his instructions for visiting Kokund and Bokhara, to proceed to the latter place, principally to obtain Stoddart’s release, and also with a view to his restoration to that precious faith in a Divine Redeemer, which he had outwardly denied. True it is, that He who cannot lie has declared that whosoever denies Him before men, him will He deny before God the Father; but, if ever an act of apostasy called for tears of compassion, it is that of the martyr Stoddart, for he, too, like Cranmer, died for the Faith which he once denied. Long before Conolly’s arrival, the Ameer of Bokhara, who was accounted even by his own countrymen an incarnation of perfidy and ferocity, had been led by the contempt with which his letter to the Queen had been treated by the Foreign Office, to wreak his vengeance on the only individual of the offending nation in his power. By his order, Stoddart was kept in a loathsome prison, frequently severely beaten, which never extorted a groan from him, and starved into a state of pitiable weakness. Meanwhile, he was repeatedly ordered to become a Mahomedan, which he steadfastly refused to do. To conquer his obstinacy, the Ameer threw him into the Chah-i-Seeah (or black pit), a place of torment for the vilest criminals. It is such a pit as that into which Jeremiah was cast, the bottom of it being composed of indescribable filth—men’s bones, decomposed animal matter, &c. In it, amongst other vermin, are large ticks, which bury themselves in the flesh of the victim, producing noisome sores. Before life was extinct, Stoddart was drawn up from this horrible dungeon, and, on reviving somewhat, was exposed in one of the great gates of the city, all who entered being instructed to spit in his face and buffet him. Still he refused to abjure Christianity. The next day he was again severely beaten, his grave dug before his face, and it was announced to him that, unless he pronounced the Mahomedan confession of faith, in that very grave he would forthwith be buried alive. Hitherto, this noble gentleman’s resolution had not failed him; but in this fearful moment of temptation, when mere human nature could sustain no more, to use his own expression,—‘The grating of the spades against the sides of the grave jarred on his shattered nerves beyond endurance.’ Certain Mahomedans, whose sympathy had been enlisted by his noble constancy, besought him almost with tears to spare them the disgrace of his murder, and to pronounce the confession as a mere matter of form; and thus, almost unconsciously, he with his mouth owned the Arabian impostor as the true Prophet of God. Arthur Conolly’s arrival, exhortations, and prayers speedily produced the blessed effect aimed at. Stoddart renounced Mahomedanism (having previously refused to live with the wife assigned him as a new convert), and thus subjected himself to a new series of cruelties and indignities which, as we have seen, ended in his and Conolly’s public martyrdom.”—[MS. Memorandum.]