Life of Ahmad — Page 557
as DR. CLARK DRAGS HIM INTO COURT 557 compared with his sense of justice and equity. Again, Dr. Henry Martyn Clark had not only charged Ahmad as with an attempt on his life but had misrepresented him in the blackest colours. He had represented him as a bad and dangerous man and a mischief-monger; and with a person other than Colonel Douglas the mere assertions of a man of the position of Dr. Clark might have carried great weight. But these allegations, serious as they were, did not cause Colonel Douglas to swerve even a hair’s breadth from the course of justice. Dr. Clark even tried to provoke the religious feelings of Colonel Douglas by representing Ahmad as as a great enemy of Christianity, but in doing so, he sadly misjudged the man who occupied the seat of justice. There was, however, another factor which had made the task of Colonel Douglas extremely difficult. As a judge, he could not ignore the evidence of Abdul H am i d, which was amplified and corroborated by five other witnesses. A man with a weaker sense of justice would have followed the easier course and given his judgment accordingly. If Colonel Douglas had done so, no one could have legally blamed him. On the contrary, he would have won the applause of the different hostile communities that were ranged against Ahmad as , as Dr. Clark himself admitted in his statement.