Driftwood Spars

Driftwood Spars Page 2

by Percival Christopher Wren

  CHAPTER II.

  THE BOY.

  (Mainly concerning the early life of Moussa Isa Somali.)

  Moussa Isa Somali never stole, lied, seduced, cheated, drank, swore,gambled, betrayed, slandered, blasphemed, nor behaved meanly norcowardly--but, alas! he had personal and racial Pride.

  It is written that Pride is the sin of Devils and that by it, Lucifer,Son of the Morning, fell.

  If it be remembered that he fell for nine days, be realized that he musthave fallen with an acceleration of velocity of thirty-two feet persecond, each second, and be conceded that he weighed a good averagenumber of pounds, some idea will be formed of the violence of theconcussion with which he came to earth.

  In spite of the terrible warning provided by so great a smash there yetremain people who will argue that it is better to fall through Pridethan to remain unfallen through lack of it. By Pride, _Pride_ is meantof course--not Conceit, Snobbishness and Bumptiousness, which are allvery damnable, and signs of a weak, base mind. One gathers that Lucifer,Son of the Morning, was not conceited, snobbish, nor bumptious. Nor wasMoussa, son of Isa, Somali--but, like Lucifer, Son of the Morning,Devil, he fell, through Pride, and came to a Bad End.

  One has known people who have owned to a sneaking liking and unwillingadmiration for Lucifer, Son of the Morning--people of the same sort asthose who find it difficult wholly to revere the prideless Erect whencomparing them with the prideful Fallen--and, for the life of me, Icannot help a sneaking liking and unwilling admiration for Moussa IsaSomali, who fell through Pride.

  There was something fine about him, even as there was about Lucifer, Sonof the Morning, and one cannot avoid feeling that if both did not getmore of hard luck and less of justice than some virtuous people oneknows, they certainly cut a better figure. Of course it is a mistake toadopt any line of action that leads definitely to the position ofUnder-Dog, and to fight when you cannot win. It is not Prudent, andPrudence leads to Favour, Success, Decorations, and the Respect ofOthers if not of yourself. It is also to be remembered that whether youare a Wicked Rebel or a Noble True-Hearted Patriot depends very largelyon whether you succeed or fail.

  All of which is mere specious and idle special pleading on behalf ofMoussa Isa, a sinful murderous Somali....

  Most of the memories of Moussa Isa centred round scars. When I say"memories of Moussa Isa" I mean Moussa Isa's own memories, for there areno memories concerning him. The might, majesty, dominion and power ofthe British Empire were arrayed against him, and the Empire's dulyappointed agents hanged him by the neck until he was dead--at an agewhen some people are yet at school, albeit he had gathered in his fewyears of life a quantity and quality of experience quite remarkable.

  'Twas a sordid business, and yet Moussa Isa died, like many veryrespectable and highly belauded folk, from the early Christians in Italyto the late Christians in Armenia, for a principle and an idea.

  He was black, he was filthy, he was savage, ignorant and ugly--but hehad his Pride, both personal and racial, for he was a Somali. A Somali,mark you, not a mere _Hubshi_ or Woolly One, not a common Nigger, not alow and despicable person--worshipping idols, eating human flesh, grubs,roots and bark--the "black ivory" of Arabs.

  If you called Moussa Isa a Hubshi, he either killed you or marked youdown for death, according to circumstances.

  Had Moussa Isa lived a few centuries earlier, been of another colour,and swanked around in painful iron garments and assorted cutlery, hewould have been highly praised for his fine and proper spirit. Poet,bard, and troubadour would have noted and published his quickness on thepoint of honour. Moussa would have been set to music and have become asource of income to the gifted. He would have become a Pillar of theOrder of Knighthood and an Ornament of the Age of Chivalry. A wreath oflaurels would have encircled his brow--instead of a rope of hempencircling his neck.

  For such fine, quick, self-respecting Pride, such resentment of insult,men have become Splendid Figures of the Glorious Past.

  _Autres jours autres moeurs_.

  How many people called him _Hubshi_, we know not; but we know, from hisown lips, of the killing of some few. Of the killing of others he hadforgotten, for his memory was poor, save for insult and kindness. And,having caught and convicted him in one or two cases the appointedservants of the British Empire first "reformed" and then slew him intheir turn--thus descending to his level without his excuse of privatepersonal insult and injury....

  The scars on Moussa Isa's face with the hole in his ear were connectedwith one of his very earliest memories--or one of his very earliestmemories was connected with the scars on his face and the hole in hisear--a memory of jolting along on a camel, swinging upside-down, while astrong hand grasped his foot; of seeing his father rush at his captorwith a long, broad-bladed spear, of being whirled and flung at hisfather's head; and of seeing his father's intimate internal economyseriously and permanently disarranged by the two-handed sword of one ofthe camel rider's colleagues (who flung aside a heavy gun which he hadjust emptied into Moussa's mamma) as his father fell to the ground underthe impact and weight of the novel missile. Though Moussa was unaware,in his abysmal ignorance, of the interesting fact, the great two-handedsword so effectually wielded by the supporter of his captor, was exactlylike that of a Crusader of old. It was like that of a Crusader of old,because it was a direct lineal descendant of the swords of the Crusaderswho had brought the first specimens to the country, quite a good manyyears previously. Indeed some people said that a few of the swordsowned by these Dervishes were real, original, Crusaders' swords, thevery weapons whose hilts were once grasped by Norman hands, and whoseblades had cloven Paynim heads in the name of Christianity and theinterests of the Sepulchre. I do not know--but it is a wonderfully dryclimate, and swords are there kept, cherished, and bequeathed, even morereligiously than were the Stately Homes of England in that onceprosperous land, in the days before park, covert, pleasaunce, forest,glade, dell, and garden became allotments, and the spoil of the"Working"-man.

  Picked up after the raid and pursuit with a faceful of gravel, sand,dirt, and tetanus-germs, Moussa Isa, orphan, was flung on a pile of deadSomali spearmen and swordsmen, of horses, asses, camels, negroes, (old)women and other cattle--and, crawling off again, received kicks andorders to clean and polish certain much ensanguined weapons sullied withthe blood of his near and distant relatives. Thereafter he wasrecognized by the above-mentioned swordsman, and accorded the privilegeof removing his own father's blood from the great two-handed swordbefore alluded to--a task of a kind that does not fall to many littleboys. So willingly and cheerfully did Moussa perform his arduous duty(arduous because the blood had had time to dry, and dried blood takes alot of removing from steel by one unprovided with hot water) that theArab swordsman instead of blowing off the child's head with his long andbeautiful gun, damascened of barrel, gold-mounted of lock, andpearl-inlaid of stock, allowed him to rim for his life that he might diea sporting death in hot blood, doing his devilmost. (These were notslavers but avengers of enmity to the Mad Mullah and punishers offriendship to the English.)

  "How much law will you give me, O Emir?" asked the child.

  "Perhaps ten yards, dog, perhaps a hundred, perhaps more.... Run!"

  "_You_ could hit me at a thousand yards, O Emir," was the reply. "Let medie by a shot that men will talk about...."

  "Run, yelping dog," growled the Arab with a sardonic smile.

  And Moussa ran. He also bounded, shied, dodged, ducked, swerved,dropped, crawled, zig-zagged and generally gave his best attention toevading the shot of the common fighting-man whom he had propitiatorilyaddressed as "_Emir_," though a mere wearer of a single fillet ofcamel-hair cord around his _haik_. Like a naval gunner--the Arab laidhis gun and waited till the sights "came on," fired, and had thesatisfaction of seeing the child fling up his arms, leap into the airand fall twitching to the ground. Good shot! The twitches and the lastconvulsive spasm were highly artistic and creditable to the histrionicpowers of Moussa Isa, shot through the ea
r, and inwardly congratulatinghimself that he had yet a chance. But then he had had wide opportunityfor observation, and plenty of good models, in the matter ofsudden-death spasms and twitches, so the credit is the less. Anyhow, itdeceived experienced Arab eyes at a hundred yards, and the performancemay therefore be classed as good. To the reflective person it will bemanifest that Moussa's reverence for the sanctity of human lifereceived but little encouragement or development from the verybeginning....

  Returning refugees, a few days later, found Moussa very pleased-withhimself and very displeased with uncooked putrid flesh. Beingexceedingly poor and depressed as a result of the Mad Mullah's vengeful_razzia_, they sold Moussa Isa, friendless, kinless orphan, and onceagain cursed the false English who made them great promises in theMahdi's troublous day, and abandoned them to the Mad Mullah and hisDervishes as soon as the Mahdi was happily dead.

  The Mad Mullah they could understand; the English they could not. Forthe Mad Mullah they had no blame whatsoever; for the English they hadthe bitterest blame, the deepest hatred and the uttermost contempt. Whoblames the lion for seeking and slaying his prey? Who defends theunspeakable creature that throws its friends and children to thelion--in payment of its debts and in cancellation of its obligations tothose friends and children? In discussing the raid on their way tomarket with Moussa Isa, they mentioned the name of the Mad Mullah withrespect and fear. When they mentioned the English they expectorated andmade a gesture too significant to be particularized. And the tom-tomsonce again throbbed through the long nights, sending (by a code that wasbefore Morse) from village to village, from the sea to the Nile, fromthe Nile to the Niger and the Zambesi, from the Mediterranean to theCape, the news that once more the Mad Mullah had flouted that failingand treacherous race, the English, and slaughtered those who livedwithin their gates, under the shadow of their flag and the promise oftheir protection.

  Ere Moussa Isa got his next prominent scar, the signal-drums throbbedout the news that the gates were thrown open, the flag hauled down, andthe promises shamefully broken. That the representatives of the failingtreacherous race now stood huddled along the sea-shore in fear andtrembling, while those who had helped them in their trouble and hadbelieved their word were slaughtered by the thousand; that the countrywas the home of fire and sword, the oasis-fields yielding nothing butcorpses, the wells choked with dead ... red slaughter, black pestilence,starvation, misery and death, where had been green cultivation, fencedvillages, the sound of the quern and the well-wheel, the song of womenand the cry of the ploughman to his oxen. News and comments which didnothing to lessen the pride and insolence of the Jubaland tribesmen, ofthe Wak tribesmen, of the bold Zubhier sons of the desert, nor to striketerror to the hearts of the murderers of Captain Aylmer and Mr. Jenner,of slave-traders, game-poachers, raiders, wallowers in slaughter....

  Another very noticeable and remarkable scar broke the fine lines andsmooth contours of Moussa's throat and another memory was as indeliblyestablished in his mind as was the said scar on his flesh.

  At any time that he fingered the horrible ridged cicatrice, he could seethe boundless ocean and the boundless blue sky from a wretched crankycanoe-shaped boat, in which certain Arab, Somali, Negro, and othergentlemen were proceeding all the way from near Berbera to near Adenwith large trustfulness in Allah and with certain less creditable goods.It was a long, unwieldy vessel which ten men could row, one could steerwith a broad oar, and a small three-cornered sail could keep before thewind.

  But the various-clad crew of this cranky craft were gentlemen all, who,beyond running up the string-tied sail to the clothes-prop mast, ortaking a trick at the wheel--another clothes-prop with a large disc ofwood at the water-end, were far above work.

  Trusting in Allah and Mohammed his Prophet is a lot easier than rowing alineless, blunt-nosed, unseaworthy boat beneath a tropical sun. So theytrusted in God, and permitted Moussa Isa, slave-boy, to do all that itwas humanly possible for him to do.

  Moussa did all that was expected of him, but not so Allah and Mohammedhis Prophet.

  The gentle breeze that (sometimes) carries you steadily over a glassysea straight up the forty-fifth meridian of east longitude from Berberato Aden in the month of October, failed these worthy trustful Argonauts,and they were becalmed.

  But Time is made for slaves, and the only slave upon the Argosy wasMoussa Isa, and so the becalming was neither here nor there. The cargowould keep (if kept dry) for many a long day--and the greater the delayin delivery, the greater the impatience of the consignees and theirwillingness to pay even more than the stipulated price--its weight insilver _per_ rifle. But food is made for men as well as slaves, and ifyou, in your noble trustfulness, resolutely decline to reduce your dailyrations, there must, with mathematical certitude of date, arrive thefinal period to any given and limited supply. Though banking wholly withHeaven in the matter of their own salvation from hunger, the Argonautsdisplayed mere worldly wisdom in the case of Moussa Isa and gave him theminimum of food that might be calculated to keep within him strengthadequate to his duties of steering, swarming up the mast, baling,cooking, massaging the liver of the Leading Gentleman, and so forth. Andin due course, the calm continuing, these pious and religious voyagerscame to the bitter end of their water, their rice, their _dhurra_, theirdates--and all (except the salt and coffee which formed part of theostensible, bogus cargo) that they had, as they too-slowly drifted intothe track of those vessels that enter and leave the strait ofBab-el-Mandeb, the Gate of Tears, the tears of the starving, drowning,ship-wrecked and castaway.

  Salt _per se_ is a poor diet, and, for the making of potable coffee,fresh water is very necessary.

  Some of the Argonauts were, as has been said, Negro gentlemen. On thethird day of absolute starvation, one had an Idea and made a suggestion.

  The Leading Gentleman entertained it with an open mind and withoutenthusiasm.

  The Tanga tout acclaimed it as a divine inspiration.

  The one-eyed Moor literally smiled upon it. As his eye was single andhis body therefore full of light, he saw the beauty of the notion atonce. Had it been full of food instead, we may charitably suppose hewould not have remarked:--

  "A pity we did not feed him up better".

  For the suggestion concerned Moussa Isa and food--Moussa Isa as food,in point of fact. The venerable gentle-looking Arab, whose face beamedeffulgent with benevolence and virtue, murmured:--

  "He will have but little blood, the dog. None of it mustbe--er--_wasted_ by the--ah--butcher."

  The huge man with the neat geometrical pattern of little scars,perpendicular on the forehead, horizontal on the cheeks and inconcentric circles on the chest (done with loving care and a knife, inhis infancy, by his papa) said only "_Ptwack_" as he chewed a mouthfulof coffee-beans and hide. It may have been a pious ejaculation or awhole speech in his own peculiar vernacular. It was a tremendoussmacking of tremendous lips, and the expression which overspread hisspeaking countenance was of gusto, appreciative, and such as accordswith lip-smacking.

  But a very fair man (very fair beside the Negroes, Somalis, Arabs andothers our little black and brown brothers), a man with grey-blue eyes,light brown hair and moustache, and olive complexion, said to theoriginator of the Idea in faultless English, if not in faultless taste"You damned swine".

  A look of profoundest disgust overspread his handsome young face, a facewhich undoubtedly lent itself to very clear expression of such feelingsas contempt, disgust and scorn, an unusual face, with the thinhigh-bridged nose of an English aristocrat, the large eyes and pencilledblack brows of an Indian noble, the sallow yet cheek-flushed complexionof an Italian peasant-girl, and the firm lips, square jaw, and prominentchin of a fighting-man. It was essentially an English face inexpression, and essentially foreign in detail; a face of extraordinarycontradictions. The eyes were English in colour, Oriental in size andshape; the mouth and chin English in mould and in repose, Oriental inmobility and animation; the whole countenance English in shape, Orientalin complexion and pr
ofile--a fine, high-bred, strong face, upon whichplayed shadows of cruelty, ferocity, diabolical cunning; a face admiredmore quickly than liked, inspiring more speculation than trust.

  The same duality and contradiction were proclaimed in the hands--strong,tenacious, virile hands; small, fine, delicate hands; hands with thepowerful and purposeful thumb of the West; hands with the suppleartistic fingers and delicate finger-nails of the East.

  And the man's name was in keeping with hands and face, with mind, body,soul, and character, for, though he would not have done so, he couldhave replied to the query "What is your name?" with "My name? Well, infull, it is John Robin Ross-Ellison Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir HafizUllah Khan, and its explanation is my descent from General Ross-Ellison,Laird of Glencairn, and from Mir Faquir Mahommed Afzul Khan, Jam ofMekran Kot".

  In Piccadilly, wearing the garb of Piccadilly, he looked an Englishmanof the English.

  In Abdul Rehman Bazaar, Cabul, wearing the garb of Abdul Rehman Bazaar,he looked a Pathan of Pathans. In the former case, rather more sunburntthan the average lounger in Piccadilly; in the latter, rather fairerthan the average Afghan and Pathan loafer in Abdul Rehman Bazaar.

  "Walking down Unter den Linden in Berlin, with upturned moustache, helooked a most Teutonic German.

  "You observed, my friend?" queried the Leading Gentleman (whose fatherwas the son of a Negro-Arab who married, or should have married, aJewess captured near Fez, and whose mother was the daughter of aTunisian Turk by a half-bred Negress of Timbuctoo).

  "I observed," replied the fair young man in the mongrel Arabic-Swahili_lingua franca_ of the Red Sea and East African littorals "that it isbut natural for dogs to prey upon dogs."

  "There are times when the lion is driven to prey upon dogs, my dearson," interposed the mild-eyed, benevolent-looking Arab--a pensive smileon his venerable face.

  "Yes--when he is old, mangy, toothless and deserving of nothing better,my dear father," replied the fair young man, and his glances at thewhite beard, scanty locks and mumbling mouth of the ancient gentlemanhad an unpleasantly personal quality. To the casual on-looker it wouldhave seemed that an impudent boy deliberately insulted a harmlessbenevolent old gentleman. To the fair young man, however, it was wellknown that the old gentleman's name was famous across Northern andEastern Africa for monstrous villainy and fiendish cruelty--the name ofthe worst and wickedest of those traders in "black ivory," one of whoseside-lines is frequently gun-running. Also he knew that thebenevolent-looking old dear was desirous that the Leading Gentleman, hispartner, should join with him in a little scheme (a scheme revealed byone Moussa Isa, eaves-dropper) to give the fair young man some inchesof steel instead of the pounds of Teutonic gold due for services (andrifles) rendered, when they should reach the quiet spot on the northernshore of the Persian Gulf where certain bold caravan-leaders would awaitthem and their precious cargo--a scheme condemned by the LeadingGentleman on the grounds of the folly of killing the goose that laid thegolden eggs. But then the wealthy Arab patriarch was retiring from therisky business (already nearly ruined and destroyed by Englishgun-boats) after that trip, and the Leading Gentleman was not. Thus itwas that the attitude of the fair young man toward Sheikh Abou benMustapha Muscati did not display that degree of respect that his greyhairs and beautiful old face would appear to deserve.

  The French-speaking Moslem Berber _ex_-Zouave, from Algiers, suggestedthat Moussa Isa, a slave, was certainly not fitting food for gentlemenwho fight, hunt, travel, poach elephants, deal in "black ivory," runguns, and generally lead a life too picturesque for an over-"educated,"utilitarian and depressing age--but what would you? "One eats--but yes,one eats, or one ceases to live, and one does not wish to cease tolive--and therefore one eats" and he cocked a yellow and appraising eyeat Moussa Isa. The sense of the meeting appeared to be that though onewould not have chosen this particular animal, necessity knows norule--and if the throat be cut while the animal be alive, one may eat ofthe flesh and break the Law by so much the less. Moussa Isa must be_halalled_.[40] But the fair young man drawing a Khyber knife with twofeet of blade, observed that it was now likely that there would be aplethora of food, as he would most assuredly cut the throat of anythroat-cutter.

  [40] To _halal_ is to make lawful, here to cut the throat of a living animal in order that its flesh may be eatable by good Mussulmans.

  Moussa Isa regarded him with the look often seen in the eye of anintelligent dog.

  The venerable Arab smiled meaningly at the Leading Gentleman, and theTanga tout asked if all were to hunger for the silly scruples of one."If the fair-faced Sheikh did not wish to eat of Moussa, none would urgeit. Live and let live. The gentlemen were hungry; ..." but the fairyoung man unreasonably replied, "Then let them eat _thee_ since they canstomach carrion," and for the moment the subject dropped--largelybecause the fair young man was supposed always to carry a revolver,which was not a habit of his good colleagues. It was another evidence ofhis strange duality that revolver and knife were (rare phenomenon)equally acceptable to him, though in certain environment the pistolrather suggested itself to his left hand, while in others his right handwent quite unconsciously to his long knife.

  In the present company no thought of the fire-arm entered his head--thiswas a knifing, back-stabbing outfit;--none here who stood up to shootand be shot at in fair fight....

  The Leading Gentleman looked many times and hard at Moussa Isa duringthe second day of his own starvation, which was the third of that of hiscompanions and the fourth of Moussa's. The Leading Gentleman, who was asrich as he was ragged and dirty, wore a very beautiful knife, which(though it reposed in a gaudy sheath of yellow, green and blue beads,fringed with a dependent filigree, or lace work, of similar beads withtassels of cowrie-shells) hailed from Damascus and had a handle of ivoryand gold, and an inlaid blade on which were inscribed verses from theQ'ran.

  Moussa Isa knew the pattern of it well by the close of day. The LeadingGentleman took that evening to sharpening the already sharp blade of theknife. As he sharpened it on his sandal and the side of the boat, andtried its edge on his thumb, he regarded the thin body of Moussa Isavery critically.

  His look blended contempt, anticipation, and anxiety.

  He broke a long brooding silence with the remark:--

  "The little dog will be thinner still, to-morrow "--a remark whichevoked from the fair youth the reply: "And so will you".

  Perhaps truth covered and excused a certain indelicacy and callousnessin the statement of the Leading Gentleman, albeit the fair young manappeared annoyed at it. His British blood and instincts becamepredominant when the killing and eating of a fellow-creature were on the_tapis_--the said fellow-creature being on it at the same time.

  A colleague from Dar-es-Salaam, who had an ear and a half, three teeth,six fingers, innumerable pockmarks and a German accent, said, "He willhave little fat," and there was bitterness in his tone. As a businessman he realized a bad investment of capital. The food in which they hadwallowed should have gone to the fattening of Moussa Isa. Also a fearstruck him.

  "He'll jump overboard in the night--the ungrateful dog. Tie him up," andhe reached for a coil of cord.

  "He will not be tied up," observed the fair youth in a quiet, obstinatevoice.

  "See, my friend," said the Leading Gentleman, "it is a case of one ormany. Better _that_ one," and he pointed to Moussa Isa, "than another,"and he looked meaningly at the fair young man.

  "And yet, I know not," murmured the venerable Arab, "I know not. We arenot in the debt of the slave. We _are_ in the debt of the Sheikh. Itwould cancel all obligations if the Sheikh from the North preferred tooffer himself as--"

  The young man's long knife flashed from its sheath as he sprang to hisfeet. "Let us eat monkey, if eat we must," he cried, pointing to theArab--and, even as he spoke, the huge man with the scars, flinging hisgreat arms around the youth's ankles, partly rose and neatly tipped himoverboard. He had long hated the fair man.

  Straightway, unseen by any, as all eyes
were on the grey-eyed youth andhis assailant, Moussa Isa cast loose the _toni_[41] that nestled beneaththe stern of the larger boat. He was about to shout that he had done sowhen he realised that this would defeat his purpose, and also that thefair Sheikh was still under water.

  [41] Small dug-out canoe.

  "Good," murmured the old Arab, "now brain him as he comes up--and securehis body."

  But the fair youth knew better than to rise in the immediateneighbourhood of the boat. Swimming with the ease, grace and speed of aseal, he emerged with bursting lungs a good hundred yards from where hehad disappeared. Having breathed deeply he again sank, to re-appear ata point still more distant, and be lost in the gathering gloom.

  "He is off to Cabul to lay his case before the Amir," observed theelderly Arab with grim humour.

  "Doubtless," agreed the Leading Gentleman, "he will swim the 2000 milesto India, and then up the Indus to Attock." And added, "But, bearwitness all, if the young devil turn up again some day, that _I_ had noquarrel with him.... A pity! A pity!... Where shall we find his like, aPrank among the Franks, an Afghan among Afghans, a Frenchman in Algiers,a nomad robber in Persia, a Bey in Cairo, a Sahib in Bombay--equally athome as gentleman or tribesman? Where shall we find his like again asgatherer of the yellow honey of Berlin and as negotiator in Marseilles(where the discarded Gras breech-loaders of the army grow) and inMuscat? Woe! Woe!"

  "Or his like for impudence to his elders, harshness in a bargain,cunning and greed?" added the benevolent-looking Arab, who had gained ahandsome sum by the murder.

  "For courage," corrected the Leading Gentleman, and with a heavy sigh,groaned. "We shall never see him more--and he was worth his weight to meannually in gold."

  "No, you won't see him again," agreed the Arab. "He'll hardly swim toAden--apart from the little matter of sharks.... A pity the sharksshould have so fair a body--and we starve!" and he turned a fatherlybenevolent eye on Moussa Isa--whom a tall slender black Arab, from thehills about Port Sudan, of the true "fuzzy-wuzzy" type, had seized inhis thin but Herculean arms as the boy rose to spring into the _toni_and paddle to the rescue of his benefactor.

  The Dar-es-Salaam merchant threw Fuzzy Wuzzy a coil of cord and MoussaIsa (who struggled, kicked, bit and finding resistance hopeless,screamed, "Follow the boat, Master," as he lay on his back), was boundto a cracked and salt-encrusted beam or seat that supported, or wassupported by, the cracked and salt-encrusted sides of the canoe-shapedvessel.

  Although very, very hungry, and perhaps as conscienceless and wicked agang as ever assembled together on the earth or went down to the sea inships, there was yet a certain reluctance on the part of some of themembers to revert to cannibalism, although all agreed that it wasnecessary.

  Among the reluctant-to-commence were those who had no negro blood. Amongthe ready-to-commence, the full-blooded negroes were the most impatient.

  Although very hungry and rather weak they were in different case fromthat of European castaway sailors, in that all were inured to longperiods of fasting, all had crossed the Sahara or the Sus, lived fordays on a handful of dates, and had tightened the waist-string by way ofa meal. Few of them ever thought of eating between sunrise and sunset.The lives of the negroes were alternations of gorging and starving,incredible repletion and more incredible fasting; devouring vast massesof hippopotamus-flesh to-day, and starving for a week thereafter; poundsof prime meat to-day, gnawing hunger and the weakness of semi-starvationfor the next month.

  "At sunrise," said the Leading Gentleman finality.

  Good! That left the so-desirable element of chance. It left opportunityfor change of programme inasmuch as sunrise might disclose help in theshape of a passing ship. The matter would rest with Heaven, and piousmen might lay them down to sleep with clear conscience, reflecting that,should it be the Will of Allah that His servants should not eat of thisflesh, other would be provided; should other not be provided it wasclearly the Will of Allah that His servants should eat of this flesh!Excellent--there would be a meal soon after sunrise.

  And the Argonauts laid them down to sleep, hungry but gratefullytrustful, trustfully grateful. But Moussa Isa watched the wondrouslustrous stars throughout the age-long, flash-short night and thought ofmany things.

  Had the splendid, noble Sheikh from the North heard his cry and had hefound the _toni_? How far had he swum ere his strength gave out or, withsudden swirl, he was dragged under by the man-eating shark? Would heremove his long cotton shirt, velvet waistcoat and baggy cottontrousers? The latter would present difficulties, for the waist-stringwould tangle and the water would swell the knot and prevent the drawingof string over string.

  Moreover, the garments, though very baggy, were tight round the ankles.Would he cast off his beautiful yard-long Khyber knife? It would go tohis heart to do that, both for the sake of the weapon itself and becausehe would have to go to his death unavenged, seized by a shark withoutgiving it its death-wound. Had he heard and would he follow the boat inthe moonlight, find the _toni_ and escape? Could he swim to Aden? Theyhad said not--even leaving sharks out of consideration, and indeed itmust be forty or fifty miles away. Judging by their progress they musthave done about one hundred and fifty miles since they embarked at thelonely spot on the Berbera coast for the other lonely spot on the Adencoast, where certain whisperings with certain mysterious camel-riderswould preface their provisioning for the voyage along the wearyHadramant coast to the Ras el Had and Muscat--just a humble boat-load ofpoor but honest toilers and tradesmen, interested in dried fish, dates,the pearl-fishery and the pettiest trading. No, he would never reachland, wonderful swimmer as he was. He would be lost in the sea as is theWebi Shebeyli River in the sands of the South, unless he followed thedrifting boat and found the _toni_. Otherwise, he might be picked up,but he would have to keep afloat all night to do that, unless he had theextraordinary luck to be seen by dhow or ship before dark. That couldhardly be, unless the same ship or dhow were visible from their ownboat, and none had been seen.

  No, he must be dead--and Moussa Isa would shortly follow him. How hewished he could have given his life to save him. Had he known, he wouldhave cried out, "Let them eat me, O Master," and prevented him fromrisking his life. If he should get the chance of striking one blow forhis life in the morning he would bestow it upon the scar-faced beast whohad tripped the fair Sheik overboard. If he could strike two he wouldgive the second to the old Arab who flogged women and children to deathwith the _kourbash_,[42] as an amusement, and whose cruelties werefamous in a cruel land; the old Evil who hated, and plotted the deathof, the fair Sheikh, with the leader of the expedition in order thatthey might divide his large share of the gun-running proceeds and Germansubsidy. If he could strike a third blow it should be at the filthyHubshi of the Aruwimi, the low degraded Woolly One from the darkInterior (of human sacrifice, cannibalism and ju-ju) who had proposedeating him. Yes--if he could grab the leader's knife and deal three suchstabs as the Sheikh dealt the lion, at these three, he could diecontent. But this was absurd! They would _halal_ him first, of course,and unbind him afterwards.... They might unbind him first though, so asto place him favourably with regard to--economy. They would use theempty army-ration tin, shining there like silver in the moonlight, thetin with which he had done so much weary baling. Doubtless the leaderand the Arab would share its contents. He grudged it them, and hoped aquarrel and struggle might arise and cause it to be spilt.

  [42] Rhinoceros-hide whip.

  An unpleasant death! Without cowardice one might dislike the thought ofhaving one's throat cut while one's hands were bound and one watched theblood gushing into an old army-ration tin. Perhaps there would be noneto gush--and a good job too. Serve them right. Could he cut his wristson a nail or a splinter or with the cords, and cheat them, if there wereany blood in him now. He would try. Yes, an unpleasant death. No one,no true Somali, that is, objected to a prod in the heart with ashovel-headed spear, a thwack in the head with a hammered slug, a sweepat the neck with a big sword--but to have a pers
on sawing at your throatwith weak and shaking hands is rotten....

  One quite appreciated that masters must eat and slaves must die, and thereligious necessity for cutting the throat while the animal is alive,according to the Law--and there was great comfort in the fact that theleader's knife was inscribed with verses of the Q'ran and would probablybe used for the job. (The leader liked jobs of that sort.) Countless itwould confer distinction in Paradise upon one already distinguished ashaving died to provide food for a band of right-thinking,religious-minded gentlemen, who, even in such terrible straits, forgotnot the Law nor omitted the ceremonies....

  Where now was the fair-faced master who so resembled the English but wasso much braver, fiercer, so much more staunch? Though fair as they, andknowing their speech, he could not be of a race that led whole tribes totrust in them, called them "Friendlies" and then forsook them; came tothem in the day of trouble asking help, and then scuttled away anddeserted their allies, leaving them to face alone the Power whose wrathand vengeance their help-giving had provoked. Yet there were good menamong them--there was Kafil[43] Bey for example. Kafil Bey whose lastnoble fight he had witnessed. If the fair-faced Sheikh had any of theweak English blood in his veins it must be of such a man as Kafil Bey.

  [43] Corfield?

  Was he still swimming? Had he been picked up? Was he shark's food? Tothink that _he_ should have come to his death over such a thing as aslave boy (albeit a Somali and no Hubshi).

  This was an Emir indeed.

  An idea!... He called aloud: "Are you there, Master? The _toni_ is looseand must be near," again and again, louder and louder. Perhaps he wasfollowing and would hear. Again, louder still.

  The one-eyed man, disturbed by the cry, stirred, threw his arms abroad,stretched, and put his foot on the mouth of a neighbour lyinghead-to-foot beside him. The neighbour snored loudly and turned his facesideways under the foot. He had slept standing jammed against the wallin the Idris of Omdurman, one of the most terrible jails of all time,and a huge foot on his face was a matter of no moment.

  The Tanga tout suddenly emitted a scream, a blood-curdling scream, andimmediately scratched his ribs like a monkey.... Moussa Isa held hispeace.

  Anon the scar-faced man turned over, moving others.

  Could it be near dawn already, and were his proprietors waking up? Hecould see no change in the East, no paling of the lustrous stars. Was itan hour ago or eight hours ago that the night had fallen? Had he an hourto live or a night? Would he ever see Berbera again, steer a boat downits deep inlet, gaze upon its two lighthouses, its fort, hospital,barracks, piers, warehouses, bazaars; drive a camel along by its sevenmiles of aqueduct, look down from the hills upon this wonderful andmighty metropolis, greater and grander than Jibuti, Zeyla, Bulhar andKaram, surely the greatest and most marvellous port and city of theworld, ere driving on through the thorn-bush and acacia-jungle into thevast waterless Haud? Would he ever again see the sun rise in the desert,smell the smoke of the camel-dung cooking-fires.... What was that? Thesky was paling in the East, growing grey, a rose-pink flush on thehorizon--dawn and death were at hand.

  Before the heralds of the sun, the moon slowly veiled her face withlightest gossamer while the weaker stars fled. The daily miracle andcommon marvel proceeded before the tired eyes of the bound slave; therim of the sun appeared above the rim of the sea; the moon more deeplyveiled her face from the fierce red eye, and gracefully and graduallyretired before the advance of the usurping conqueror--and the slaveseemed to hear the fat croaking voice of the leader saying, "Atsunrise".

  Broad day and all but he asleep. Well--it had come at last. When wouldthey awake? Was the toni anywhere near?

  The man with the geometrical pattern of scars on his face and chestsuddenly sat bolt upright like a released spring, yawned, looked at thesky and the limp sail, and then at Moussa Isa. As his eye fell upon theboy he smiled copiously, protruded a very red tongue between very whiteteeth, and licked huge blue-black lips. He leaned over and awakened theLeading Gentleman. Then he pointed to the Victim. Both watched thehorizon where, beyond distant Bombay and China, the sun was appearing,rising with the rapidity of the minute hand of a big clock. Neitherlooked to the West.

  The child knew that when the sun had risen clear of the sea, he mightlook upon it for a minute or two--and no more. A puff of wind fanned hischeek; the sail filled and drew. The boat moved through the water andthe one-eyed gentleman, arising and treading upon the out-lying tractsof the sleepers, stumbled to the rudder, which was tied withcoconut-fibre to an upright stake. The breeze strengthened and there wasa ripple of water at the bows. Was he saved?

  The one-eyed person looked more disappointed than pleased, and observedto the Leading Gentleman: "We cannot live to Aden, though the wind hold.We must eat," and he regarded the figure of Moussa Isa critically,appraisingly, with mingled favour and disfavour. His expressivecountenance seemed to say, "He is food--but he is poor food".

  Nevertheless an unmistakable look of relief overspread his face as theLeading Gentleman replied with conviction, "We must eat...." and added,"This is but a dawn-breeze and will not take us half a mile".

  "Then let us eat forthwith," said the one-eyed man, and he fairly beamedupon Moussa Isa, doubtless with the said light of which his body wasfull, in consequence of his singleness of vision. The whole party was bythis time awake and Moussa Isa the cynosure of neighbouring eyes. TheLeading Gentleman drew his beautiful knife from its tawdry sheath andgave it a last loving strop on his horny palm.

  Willing hands dragged the head of Moussa Isa across the beam and willingbodies sat upon him, that he might not waste time, and something moreprecious, by thoughtless wriggling, delaying breakfast. The LeadingGentleman crawled to an advantageous position, and having bowed inprayer, sawed away industriously.

  Moussa Isa wished to shriek to him that he was a fool and a bungler;that throats were not to be cut in that fashion, with hackings andsawing at the gullet. Knew the clumsy fumbler nothing of bigblood-vessels?... but he could not speak.

  "_That_ is not the way," said the benevolent-looking old Arab. "Stab,man, stab under the ear--don't cut ... not there, anyhow."

  The Leading Gentleman tried the other side of the double-edged blade,continuing obstinately, and Moussa Isa contrived a strange sound whichdied away on a curious bubbling note and he grew faint.

  Suddenly the one-eyed individual at the rudder screamed aloud, anddisturbed the Leading Gentleman's earnest endeavour to prevent waste.Not from sensibility did the one-eyed scream, nor on account of hisgrowing conviction that the Leading Gentleman was getting more than hisshare, but because, as all realized upon looking up, a great ship wasbearing down upon them from the West.

  So intent had all been upon the preparation of breakfast that thesteamer was almost audible when seen.

  Good! Here came water, rice, bread, sugar, flour, and perhaps meat, forpoor castaways, and probably money--from kindly lady-passengers, thislast, for the ship was obviously a liner. The wretched Moussa Isa'scarcase was now superfluous--nay dangerous, and must be disposed of atonce, for Europeans are most kittle cattle. They will exterminate yourtribe with machine-guns, gin, small-pox, and still nastier things, butthey are fearfully shocked at a bit of killing on the part of others.They call it murder. And though they will well-nigh depopulate a countrythemselves, they will wax highly indignant if any of the survivors do alittle slaying, even if they kill but a miserable slave, like thisSomali dog.

  Heave him overboard.

  No. Ships carry the "far-eye," the magic instrument that makes thedistant near, that brings things from miles away to within a few yards.Doubtless telescopes were on them already. Keep in a close group roundthe body, smuggle it under the palm-mats and make believe to have beentrying to kindle a fire in an old kerosine-oil tin.... Signals ofdistress appeared and Moussa Isa disappeared. The great steamerapproached, slowed down, and came to a standstill beside the boat of thestarving castaways. From her cliff-like side the passengers, crowdingthe rails of her man
y decks, looked down with interest upon aprehistoric craft in which lay a number of poor emaciated blacks andArabs, clad for the most part in scanty cotton rags. These poorcreatures feebly extended skinny hands and feebly raised quaveringvoices, as they begged for water and a little rice, only water and alittle rice in the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate. Theirtins, lotahs and goat-skins were filled, bags of rice, bread and flourwere lowered to them; a box of sugar and a packet of biscuit were added;and a gentle little rain of coins fell as though from Heaven.

  Kodaks clicked, clergymen beamed, ladies said, "How sweetlypicturesque--poor dears"; the Captain murmured, "Damnedest scoundrelsunhung--but can't leave 'em to starve"; the "poor dears" smiled largelyand ate wolfishly; Moussa Isa bled, and the great steamer resumed herway.

  "Pat" Brighte (she was Cleopatra Diamond Brighte who married ColonelDearman of the Gungapur Volunteer Bines) found she had got a splendidsnap-shot when her films were developed at Gungapur. A little later shegot another when the look-out saw, and a boat picked up, a man who waslying in a little dug-out or _toni_. When able to speak, he told the_serang_[44] of the lascars that he was the sole survivor of abunder-boat which had turned turtle and sunk. He understood nothing butHindustani.... Miss Brighte pitied the poor wretch but thought he lookedrather horrid....

  [44] Native boatswain.

  The hearts of the castaways were filled with contentment as theirstomachs were filled with food, and so busily did they devote themselvesto eating, drinking, and sleeping that they forgot all about Moussa Isabeneath the palm-mats.

  When they chanced upon him he was just alive, and his wound was closed.The attitude in which he had been dumped down upon the cargo (theostensible and upper strata thereof, consisting of hides and salt, witha hint of ostrich-feathers, coffee, frankincense and myrrh) had favouredhis chance of recovery, for, thanks to a friendly bundle, his head waspressed forward to his chest and the lips of the gaping wound in histhroat were shut.

  Moussa Isa was tougher than an Indian chicken.

  Near Aden his proprietors were captured by an officious andunsympathetic police (Moussa was sent to what he dreamed to be Heavenand later perceived to be a hospital) and while they went to jail, anumber of bristly-haired Teutonic gentlemen at the Freidrichstrasse,Arab gentlemen at Muscat, and Afghan gentlemen at Cabul, were made toexercise the virtue of patience. So the would-be murderers of John RobinRoss-Ellison Ilderim Dost Mahommed unintentionally saved him from jail,but never received his acknowledgments....

  Discharged from the hospital, Moussa became his own master, a gentlemanat large, and, for a time, prospered in the coal-trade.

  He steered a coal-lighter that journeyed between the shore and theships.

  One day he received a blow, a curse, and an insult, from the _maccudam_or foreman of the gang that worked in the boat which he steered. Neitherblows nor curses were of any particular account to Moussa, but this manSulemani, a nondescript creature of no particular race, and only a manin the sense that he was not a woman nor a quadruped, had called him"_Hubshi_" Woolly One. Had called Moussa Isa of the Somal a _Hubshi_, asthough he had been a common black nigger. And, of course, it wasintentional, for even this eater of dogs and swine and lizards knew thegreat noble, civilized and cultured Somal, Galla, Afar and Abyssinianpeople from niggers. Even an English hide-and-head-buying tripper and_soi-disant_ big-game hunter knew a Zulu from a Hottentot, a Masai froma Wazarambo, and a Somali from a Nigger!

  The only question was as to _how_ the scoundrel should be killed, forhe was large and strong, and never far from a shovel, crow-bar,boat-hook or some weapon. Not much hope of being able to fasten on histhroat like a young leopard on a dibatag, kudu or impala buck.

  As Moussa sat behind him at the tiller, he would regard the villain'sneck with interest, his fat neck, just below and behind the big ear.

  If he only had a knife--such as the beauty that once cut his throat--oreven a scrap of iron or of really hard pointed wood, honour could besatisfied and a stain removed from the scutcheon of Moussa Isa of theSomal race, insulted.

  One lucky night he got his next scar, the fine one that ornamented hischeek-bone, and a really serviceable weapon of offence against theoffender Sulemani.

  On this auspicious night, a festive English sailor flung a bottle athim, in merry sport, as he passed beneath the verandah of the temple ofVenus and Bacchus in which the sailor sprawled. It struck him in theface, broke against his cheek-bone, and provided him with a new scar anda serviceable weapon, a dagger, convenient to handle and deadly to slay.The bottle-neck was a perfect hilt and the long tapering needle-pointedspire of glass projecting from it was a perfect blade--rightly used, ofcourse. Only a fool would attempt a heart-stab with such a dagger, as itwould shatter on the ribs, leaving the fool to pay for his folly. Butthe neck-stab--for the big blood-vessels--oho! And Moussa Isa lickedhis chops just as he had seen the black-maned lion do in his ownfatherland; just as did the lion from whom the fair Sheikh had savedhim.

  Toward the sailor, Moussa felt no resentment for the assault that hadlaid him bleeding in the gutter. Had he called him "_Hubshi_" it wouldhave been a different matter--perhaps very different for the sailor.Moussa Isa regarded curses, cruelties, blows, wounds, attempts atmurder, as mere natural manifestations of the attitude of theiroriginators, and part of the inevitable scheme of things. Insults to hispersonal and racial Pride were in another category altogether.

  Yes--the bottle must have been thus usefully broken by the hand of theSupreme Deity himself, prompted by Moussa's own particular and private_kismet_, to provide Moussa with the means of doing his duty by himselfand his race, in the matter of the dog who had likened a long-haired,ringletty-haired aquiline-nosed, thin-lipped son of the Somals to aWoolly One--a black beast of the jungle!

  Our young friend had never heard of the historical glass-bladed daggersof the _bravos_ of Venice, but he saw at a glance, as he rose to hisfeet and stared at the bottle, that he could do his business (and thatof the foreman) with the fortunately--shaped fragment, and eke leave thepoint of the weapon in the wound for future complications if the blowfailed of immediate fatal effect.

  He bided his time....

  One black night Moussa Isa sat on the stern of his barge holding to arope beneath the high wall of the side of the P. & O. liner, _Persia_,in shadow and darkness undispelled by the flickering flare of a brazierof burning fuel, designed to illuminate the path of panting, sweating,coal-laden coolies up and down narrow bending planks, laid from thelighter to the gloomy hole in the ship's side.

  The hot, still air was thick with coal-dust and the harmless necessaryhowls of the hundreds of sons of Ham, toiling at high pressure.

  In the centre of a vast, silent circle of mysterious lamp-spangled seaand shore, and of star-spangled sky, this spot was Inferno, an offenceto the brooding still immensity.

  And suddenly Moussa Isa was dimly conscious of his enemy, of him who hadinsulted the great Somal race and Moussa Isa. On the broad edge of thebig barge Sulemani stood, before, and a foot below him, in the darkness,yelling directions, threats, promises and encouragement to his gang. Ifonly there had been a moon or light by which he could see to strike!Suddenly the edge of a beam of yellow light from a port-hole struck uponSulemani's neck, illuminating it below and behind his ear. Mrs. "Pat"Dearman, homeward bound, had just entered her cabin and switched on theelectric light. (When last she passed Aden she had been Miss CleopatraDiamond Brighte, bound for Gungapur and the bungalow of her brother.)

  It was Mrs. Pat Dearman's habit to read a portion of the Scripturesnightly, ere retiring to rest, for she was a Good Woman and consideredthe practice to be not only a mark of, but essential to, goodness.

  Doubtless the Powers of Evil smiled sardonically when they noted thatthe light which she evoked for her pious exercise lit the hand of MoussaIsa to murder, providing opportunity. Moussa Isa weighed chances andconsidered. He did not want to bungle it and lose his revenge and hislife too. Would he be seen if he struck now? The light fe
ll on the veryspot for the true infallible death-stroke. Should he strike now, here,in the midst of the yelling mob?

  Rising silently, Moussa drew his dagger of glass from beneath his onlygarment, aimed at the patch of light upon the fat neck, and struck.Sulemani lurched, collapsed, and fell between the lighter and the shipwithout an audible sound in that dim pandemonium.

  Even as the "dagger" touched flesh, the light was quenched, Mrs. PatDearman having realized that the stuffy, hot cabin was positivelyuninhabitable until the port-hole could be opened, after coalingoperations were completed.

  Moussa Isa reseated himself, grabbed the rope again, and with clearconscience, duty done, calmly awaited that which might follow.

  Nothing followed. None had seen the deed, consummated in unrelievedgloom; the light had failed most timely....

  The next person who mortally affronted Moussa Isa, committing theunpardonable sin, was a grievously fat, foolish Indian Mohammedan youthwhose father supported four wives, five sons, six daughters and himselfin idleness and an Aden shop.

  It was a remarkably idle and unobtrusive shop and yet money flowed intoit without stint, mysteriously and unostentatiously, the conduits of itsflow being certain modest and retiring Arab visitors in long brown orwhite _haiks_, with check cotton head-dresses girt with ropes ofcamel-hair, who collogued with the honest tradesman and departed assilently and unobtrusively as they came....

  One of them, strangely enough, ejaculated "_Himmel_" and"_Donnerwetter_" as often as "_Bismillah_" and "_Inshallah_" when heswore.

  The very fat son of this secretive house in an evil hour oneinauspicious evening took it upon him to revile and abuse his father'sservant, one Moussa Isa, an African boy, as he performed divers domesticduties in the exiguous "compound" of the dwelling-place and refused todo the fat youth's behest ere completing them.

  "Haste thee at once to the bazaar, thou dog," screamed the fat youth.

  "Later on," replied Moussa Isa, using the words that express the generalattitude of the East.

  "Now, dog. Now, Hubshi, or I will beat thee."

  "I will kill _you_," replied Moussa Isa, and again bided his time.

  "Hubshi, Hubshi, Hubshi," goaded the misguided fat one.

  His Kismet led the youth, some weeks later, to lay him down and sleep inthe shade of the house upon some broad flagstones. Here Moussa found himand regretted the loss of his glass-dagger,--last seen in the neck of aforeman of coal-coolies toppling into the dark void between a barge anda ship,--but remembered a big heavy stone used to facilitate the scalingof the compound wall.

  Staggering with it to the spot where the fat youth lay slumberingpeacefully, Moussa Isa, in the sight of all men (who happened to belooking), dashed it upon his fez-adorned head, and established thehitherto disputable fact that the fat youth had brains.

  To the Magistrate, Moussa Isa offered neither excuse nor prayer.Explanation he vouchsafed in the words:--

  "He called _me_, Moussa Isa of the Somali, a _Hubshi!_"

  Being of tender years and of insignificant stature he was condemned toflogging and seven years in a Reformatory School. He was too juvenilefor the Aden Jail. The Reformatory School nearest to Aden is at Duri inIndia, and thither, in spite of earnest prayers that he might go to hardlabour in Aden Jail like a man and a Somali, was Moussa Isa dulytransported and therein incarcerated.

  At the Duri Reformatory School, Moussa Isa was profoundly miserable,most unhappy, and deeply depressed by a sense of the very cruellestinjustice.

  For here they simply did not know the difference between a Somal and awoolly-haired dog of a negro. They honestly did not know that there wasa difference. To them, a clicking Bushman was as a Nubian, anearth-eating Kattia as a Kabyle, a face-cicatrized, tooth-sharpenedcannibal of the Aruwimi as a Danakil,--a _Hubshi_ as a Somal. Theysimply did not know. To them all Africans were _Hubshis_ (just as to anEnglish M.P. all the three or four hundred millions of Indians areBengali babus). They meant no insult; they knew no better. All Africanswere black niggers and every soul in the place, from Brahmin toUntouchable, looked down upon the African, the Black Man, the Nigger,the Cannibal, the _Hubshi_, sent from Africa to defile their Reformatoryand destroy their caste.

  Here, the proud self-respecting Moussa, jealous champion of the honourof his, to him, high and noble race, found himself a god-send to theOut-castes, the Untouchables, the Depressed Classes, Mangs, Mahars, andSudras,--they whose touch, nay the touch of whose very shadow, isdefilement! For, at last, they, too, had some one to look down upon, todespise, to insult. After being the recipients-of-contempt as naturallyand ordainedly as they were breathers-of-air, they at last could apply asalve, and pass on to another the utter contempt and loathing which theythemselves received and accepted from the Brahmins and all those ofCaste. They had found one lower than themselves. _Moussa Isa of theSomali_ was the out-cast of out-casts, the pariah of pariahs, prohibitedfrom touching the untouchables, one of a class depressed below thedepressed classes--in short a _Hubshi!_

  Even a broad-nosed, foreheadless, blubber--lipped aborigine from thehill-jungles objected to his presence!

  In the small, self-contained, self-supporting world of the Reformatory,it was Moussa Isa against the World. And against the World he stood up.

  It had to learn the difference between a Somali and a _Hubshi_ at anycost--the cost of Moussa's life included.

  What added to the sorrow of the situation was the realization of howcharming and desirable a retreat the place was in itself,--apart fromits ignorant and stupid inhabitants.

  Expecting a kind of torture-house wherein he would be starved, sweated,thrashed by brutal _kourbash_-wielding overseers, he found the mostpalatial and comfortable of clubs, a place of perfect peace, safety,and ease, where one was kindly treated by those in authority,sumptuously fed, luxuriously lodged, and provided with pleasantoccupation, attractive amusements and reasonable leisure.

  He had always heard and believed that the English were mad, and now heknew it.

  As a punishment for murder he had got a birching that merely tickledhim, and a free ticket to seven years' board, lodging, clothing,lighting, medical care, instruction and diversion!

  _Wow_!

  Were it not for the presence of the insolent, ignorant, untravelled,inexperienced, soft-living, lily-livered dogs of inhabitants, the placewas the Earthly Paradise. They were the crocodile in the ointment.

  A young Brahmin, son of a well-paid Government servant, and incarceratedfor forgery and theft, was his most annoying persecutor. He was at greatpains to expectorate and murmur "_Hubshi_" in accents of abhorrentcontempt, whenever Moussa Isa chanced between the wind and his nobility.

  The first time, Moussa replied with pitying magnanimity and allreasonableness:--

  "I am not a _Hubshi_, but a Somali, which is quite different--even as alion is different from a jackal or a man from an ape".

  To which the Brahmin replied but:--

  "_Hubshi_," and pointed out that there was danger of Moussa Isa's shadowtouching him, if Moussa were not careful.

  "I must kill you if you call me _Hubshi_, understanding that I am of theSomals," said Moussa Isa.

  "_Hubshi_," would the Brahmin reply and loudly bewail his evil Luckwhich had put him in the power of the accursed Feringhi Government--aGovernment that compelled a Brahmin to breathe the same air as a filthynegro dog, a Woolly One of Africa, barely human and most untouchable, aliving Contamination ... and Moussa cast about for a weapon.

  His first opportunity arose when he found the Brahmin, who was in thebook-binding and compositor department, working one day in the samegardening-gang with himself.

  He had but a watering-can by way of offensive weapon, but good play canbe made with a big iron watering-can wielded in the right spirit and theright hand.

  Master Brahmin was feebly tapping the earth with a kind of single-headedpick, and watching him, Moussa Isa saw that, in a quarter of an hour orso, he might plausibly and legitimately pass within a yard or two ofthis his enemy, as
he went to and fro between the water-tap and thestrip of flower-border that he was sprinkling.... Would they hang him ifhe killed the Brahmin, or would they feebly flog him again and give hima longer sentence (that he be supported, fed, lodged, clothed and caredfor) than the present seven years?

  There was no foretelling what the mad English would do. Sometimes theyacquitted a criminal and gave him money and education, and sometimesthey sent him to far distant islands in the South and there housed andfed him free, for life; and sometimes they killed him at the end of arope.

  Doubtless Allah smote the English mad to prevent them from stealing thewhole world.... If they were not mad they would do so and enslave allother races--except their conquerors, the Dervishes, of course.... Itwas like the lying hypocrites to call the Great Mullah "the Mad Mullah"knowing themselves to be mad, and being afraid of their victorious enemywho had driven them out of Somaliland to the coast forts....

  Oh, if they would only treat him, Moussa Isa, as an adult, and send himto the Aden Jail to hard labour. There folk knew a Somali from a_Hubshi_; a gentleman of Afar and Galla stock, of Arab blood, Moslemtenets, and Caucasian descent, from a common nigger, a low blackEthiopian, an eater of men and insects, a worshipper of idols and_ju-ju_.

  In Aden, men knew a Somali from a _Hubshi_ as surely as they knew anEmir from a mere Englishman.

  Here, in benighted, ignorant, savage India, the Dark Continent indeed,men knew not what a Somali was, likened him to a Negro, ranked him lowerthan a Hindu even--called him a _Hubshi_ in insolent ignorance. If onlythe beautiful Reformatory were in Berbera, and tenanted by Africans.

  Better Aden Jail a thousand times than Duri Reformatory.

  What a splendid joke if the dog of a Brahmin who persistently insultedhim--even after he had been shown his error and ignorance--should be theunwitting means of his return to Aden--where a Somali gentleman isrecognized. There is no harm about a Jail as such. Far from it. A jailis a wise man's paradise provided by fools. You have excellent andplentiful food, a roof against the sun, unfailing water supply,clothing, interesting occupation, and safety--protection from yourenemies. No man harries you, you are not chained, you are not tortured;you have all that heart can desire. Freedom?... What _is_ Freedom?Freedom to die of thirst in the desert? Freedom to be disembowelled bythe Great Mullah? Freedom to be sold as a slave into Arabia or Persia?Freedom to be the unfed, unpaid, well-beaten property of gun-runners inthe Gulf, or of Arab _safari_ ruffians and "black-ivory" men? Freedom tobe left to the hyaena when you broke down on the march? Freedom to dieof starvation when you fell sick and could not carry coal? Thanks.

  If the mad English provided beautiful refuges, and made the commissionof certain crimes the requisite qualification for admission, let wisemen qualify.

  Take this Reformatory--where else could a little Somali boy get suchsafety, peace, food, and sumptuous luxury; everything the heart coulddesire, in return for doing a little gardening? Even a house to himselfas though he were the honoured, favourite son of some chief.

  To Moussa Isa, the dark and dingy cell with its bare stone walls, mudfloor, grated aperture and iron door was a fine safe house; its ironbed-frame with cotton-rug-covered laths and stony pillow, a piece ofwanton luxury; its shelf, stool and utensils, prideful wealth. If onlythe place were in Africa or Aden! Well, Aden Jail would do, and if theBrahmin's death led to his being sent there as a serious and respectablemurderer, it would be a real case of two enemies on one spear--an insultavenged and a most desired re-patriation achieved.

  That would be subtilty,--at once washing out the insult in theBrahmin's blood and getting sent whither his heart turned so constantlyand fondly. They had treated him as a juvenile offender because he wasso small and young, and because the killing of the fat Mussulman was hisfirst offence, as they supposed. Surely they would recognize that he wasa man when he had killed his second enemy--especially if he told themabout Sulemani. What in the name of Allah did they want, to constitute areal sound criminal, fit for Aden Jail, if three murders were notenough? Well, he would go on killing until they did have enough, andwere obliged to send him to Aden Jail. There he would behave beautifullyand kill nobody until they wanted to turn him out to starve. Then, sincemurder was the requisite qualification, he would murder to admiration.He knew they could not send him over the way to the Duri Jail, since hebelonged to Aden, had been convicted there, and only sent to the DuriReformatory because Aden boasted no such institution....

  Yes. The Brahmin's corpse should be the stepping-stone to higher thingsand the place where people knew a Somali from a Negro.

  If only he were in the carpentry department with Master Brahmin, wherethere were axes, hammers, chisels, knives, saws, and various pointedinstruments. Fancy teaching the young gentleman manners and ethnologywith an axe! However, after one or two more journeys between the tap andthe flower-bed, he would pass within striking-distance of the dog as heworked his slow way along the tract of earth he was supposed to bedigging up with the silly short-handled pick.

  Should he try and seize the pick and give him one on the temple with it?No, the Brahmin would scream and struggle and the overseer would be onMoussa Isa in a single bound. He must strike a sudden blow in the act ofpassing.

  A few more journeys to the water-tap....

  _Now!_ "_Hubshi_," eh?

  Halting beside the crouching Brahmin youth, Moussa Isa swung up theheavy watering-can by the spout and aimed a blow with all his strengthat the side of his enemy's head. He designed to bring the sharp strongrim of the base behind the ear with the first blow, on the temple withthe second, and just anywhere thereafter, if time permitted of athereafter.

  But the aggravating creature tossed his head as Moussa, with a grunt ofenergy, brought the vessel down, and the rim merely struck the top ofthe shaven skull. Another--harder. Another--with frenzied strength andthe force of long-suppressed rage and sense of wrong.

  And then Moussa was knocked head over heels and sat upon by the overseerin charge of the garden-gang, while the Brahmin twitched convulsively onthe ground. He was by no means dead, however, and the sole immediateresults, to Moussa, were penal diet, solitary confinement in hispalatial cell, a severe sentence of corn-grinding with the heavy quern,and most joyous recollections of the sound of the water-can on the pateof the foe.

  "I have still to kill you, of course," he whispered to his victim, thenext time they met, and the Brahmin went in terror of his life. He wasa very clever young person and had passed an astounding number ofexaminations in the course of his brief career. But he was notcourageous, and his "education" had given him skill in nothingpractical, except in penmanship, which skill he had devoted to forgery.

  "Why did you violently commit this dastardish deed, and assault theharmless peaceful Brahmin?" asked the Superintendent, a worthy andvoluble babu, and then translated the question into debased Hindustani.

  "He called me _Hubshi_, and I will kill him," replied Moussa.

  "Oho! and you kill everyone who calls you _Hubshi_, do you, MasterAfrican?"

  "I do. I wish to go to Aden Jail for attempting murder. It will bemurder if I am kept here where none knows a man from a dog."

  "Oho! And you would kill even _me_, I suppose, if I called you_Hubshi_."

  "Of course! I will kill you in any case if I am not sent to Aden Jail."

  The babu decided that it was high time for some other institution toshelter this touchy and truculent person, and that he would lay the casebefore the next weekly Visitor and ask for it to be submitted to theCommittee at their ensuing monthly meeting.

  The Visitor of the week happened to be the Educational Inspector. "Wantsto leave India, does he?" said the Inspector, looking Moussa over as heheard the statement of the Superintendent. "I admire his taste. India isa magnificent country to leave."

  The Educational Inspector, a very keen, thoughtful and competenteducationist, was a disappointed man, like so many of his Service. Hefelt that he had, for quarter of a century, strenuously woven ropes ofsand. When his
liver was particularly sluggish he felt that for quarterof a century he had worked industriously, not at a useless thing, but atan evil thing--a terrible belief.

  Moreover, after quarter of a century of faithful labour and stricteconomy, he found himself with a load of debt, broken health, and acheaply educated family of boys and girls to whom he was a completestranger--merely the man who found the money and sent it Home, visitingthem from time to time at intervals of four or five years. India hadkilled his wife, and broken him.

  He had had what seemed to him to be bitter experience also. Anindividual, notoriously slack and incompetent, ten years his junior, hadbeen promoted over his head, because he was somebody's cousin and thekind of fatuous ass that only labours industriously in drawing-rooms andat functions, recuperating by slacking idly in offices and at duties--apaltry but paying game much practised by a very small class in India.

  Another individual, by reason of his having come to India two boatsearlier than the Inspector, drew Rs. 500 a month more than he did, thisbeing the Senior Inspector's Allowance. That he was reported on as lazy,eccentric, and irregular, made no difference to the fact that he was afortnight senior to, and therefore worth Rs. 500 a month more than, thenext man. The recipient regarded the extra trifle (L400 a year) as hisbare right and merest due. The Inspector regarded it as an infamouspiece of injustice and folly that for fifteen years the whole of thissum should go to a lazy fool because he happened to set sail fromEngland on a certain date, and not a fortnight later. So he loathed anddetested India where he had had bad luck, bad health and what heconsidered bad treatment, and sympathized with the desire of Moussa Isa.

  "Why do you want to go back to Aden?" he inquired in the _lingua franca_of the Indian Empire, of Moussa whose heart beat high with hope.

  "Because here, where there are no lions, wolves think a lion is a dog;here where there are no men, asses think a man is a monkey. I am aSomal, and these ignorant camels think I am a negro--a filthy Hubshi."

  "And you tried to kill another boy because he called you 'Hubshi,' eh?"

  "I did, Sahib, and I will kill him yet if I be not sent to Aden. If thatfail I will kill myself also."

  "Stout fella," commented the Inspector in his own vernacular, and added,musing aloud:--

  "You'll come to the gallows through possessing pride, self-respect anddetermination, my lad. You're behind the times--or rather you maintain aspirit for which Civilization has no use. You must return to the Wildsof the Earth or else you must be content to become good, grubby, andgrey, dull and dejected, sober and sorrowful, respectable andunenterprising--like me; and you must cultivate fat, propriety, smugnessand the Dead Level.... What, you young Devil! You'd have self-respectand pride, would you; be quick upon the point of honour, eh? revive theduello, what? Get thee to a--er--less civilized and respectable age orplace ... in other words, Mr. Toshiwalla, bring the case before theCommittee of Visitors. I'll put up a note to the effect that he hadbetter be sent back to Aden. This is a Reformatory, and there's nothingvery reformatory about keeping him to plan murder and suicide because hehas been (quite unjustifiably) transported as well as flogged andimprisoned. Yes, we'll consider the case. Meanwhile, keep a sharp eye onhim--and give him all the corn-grinding he can do. Sweat the OriginalSin out of him ... and see he does not secrete any kind of weapon."

  Accordingly was Moussa segregated, and to the base women's-work ofcorn-grinding in the cook-house, wholly relegated. It was hard,soul-breaking work, ignoble and degrading, but he drew two crumbs ofcomfort from the bread of affliction. He was developing his arm-musclesand he was literally watering the said bread of affliction with thesweat of labour. As the heavy drops trickled from chin and nose into themeal around the grindstone, it pleased Moussa Isa to reflect that hisenemy should eat of it. Since the shadow of Moussa was pollution tothese travesties of men and warriors, let them have a little concretepollution also. But in the cook-house, while arm and soul weariedtogether, one heavy day of copper sky and brazen earth, first eye andthen foot, fell upon a piece of tin, the lid of some empty milk-tin orlike vessel. The prehensile toes gathered in the trove, the foot gentlyrose and the fingers of the pendant left hand secured the disc, whilethe body swayed with the strenuous circlings of the right hand chatrevolved the heavy upper millstone.

  That night, immediately after being locked in his cell, that theremight be the fullest time for bleeding to death, he slashed and slashedwhile strength lasted at wrist and abdomen--but without succeeding inpenetrating the abdominal wall and reaching the viscera.

  This effected his transfer to the Reformatory hospital and underlinedthe remark of the Inspector in the Visitors' Book to the effect that oneMoussa Isa would commit suicide or murder, if kept at Duri, and wouldcertainly not be "reformed" in any way. In hospital, Major Jackson ofthe Royal Army Medical Corps, a Visitor of the Duri Jail, paying hisperiodical visits, grew interested in the sturdy bright boy and sooncame to like him for his directness, cheery courage, and refreshingviews. When the boy was convalescent he took him on the surrounding Durigolf-links as his caddie in his endless games with his poor friendSergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith, _ex_-gentleman.

  Moussa was grateful and, fingering the scar on his throat, likened MajorJackson to his hero, the fair Sheikh who had saved him from the lion andhad lost his life through intervening on Moussa's behalf in the boat.But _he_ was not mad like these English. He would not, with infiniteearnestness, seriousness and mingled joy at success and grief atfailure, have pursued a little white ball with a stick, mile after mile,knocking it with infinite precautions, every now and then, into a littlehole, and taking it out again.

  No, _his_ idea of sport across country with an iron-shod stick wouldrather have been lion-hunting with an assegai (yet, curiously enough,one, Robin Ross-Ellison, lived to play more than one game of golf withMajor Jackson on these same Duri Links). To see this adult white manbehaving so, _coram publico_, made Moussa bitterly ashamed for him.

  And, as the sun set, Moussa Isa earned a sharp rebuke for inattentiveslacking, as he stood sighing his soul to where it sank in the West overAden and Somaliland.... Wait till his chance of escape arrived; he wouldjourney straight for the sunset, day after day, until he reached asea-shore. There he would steal a canoe and paddle and paddle straightfor the sunset, day after day, until he reached a sea-shore again. Thatwould be Africa or Arabia, and Moussa Isa would be where a Somal isknown from a _Hubshi_.... Should he make a bolt for it now? No, tooweak, and not fair to this kind Sahib who had healed him and sympathizedwith him in the matter of the ignorance and impudence of those whomisnamed a son of the Somals.... In due course, the Committee ofVisitors met at the Reformatory one morning, and found on the agendapaper _inter alia_ the case of Moussa Isa, a murderer from Aden, hisattempt at murder and suicide, and his prayer to be sent to Aden Jail.

  On the Committee were the Director of Public Instruction, the Collector,the Executive Engineer, the Superintendent of Duri Jail, the EducationalInspector, the Cantonment Magistrate, Major Jackson of the Royal ArmyMedical Corps, and a number of Indian gentlemen. To the Chairman'sinquiries Moussa Isa made the usual replies. He had been mortallyaffronted and had endeavoured to avenge the insult. He had tried to dohis duty to himself--and to his enemy. He had been put to basewomen's-work as a punishment for defending his honour and he had triedto take his life in despair. Was there _no_ justice in British lands?What would the Sahib himself do if his honour were assailed? If one roseup and insulted him and his race? Called him baboon, born of baboons,for example? Or had the Sahib no honour? Why should he have beentransported when he was not sentenced to transportation? What had hedone but defend his honour and avenge insults? Unless he were now triedfor murder and suicide, and sentenced to hard labour in Aden Jail, hewould go on murdering until they did send him there. If they said,"Well, you shan't go there, whatever you do," he would kill himself. Ifhe could get no sort of weapon he would starve himself (he did not inhis ignorance quote the gentle and joyous Pankhurst family) or hold hisbreath. So the
y had better send him, and that was all he had got to sayabout it.

  "Send him for trial before the City Magistrate and recommend that he goto Aden Jail at once, before he hurts somebody else," said the nativemembers of the Committee. "Why should we be troubled with theoff-scourings of Aden?"

  "Certainly not," opined the Collector of Duri. A pretty state of affairsif every criminal were to be allowed to select his own place ofpunishment, and to terrorize any penitentiary that had the misfortune tolack favour in his sight. Let the boy be well flogged for the assaultand attempted suicide, and then let him rejoin the ordinary gangs andclasses. It was the Superintendent's duty to watch his charges and keepdiscipline in what was, after all, a school.

  "Sir, he is one violent and dangerous character and will assault thepeaceful and mild. Yea--he may even attack _me_," objected the babu.

  "Are we to understand that you admit your inability to maintain order inthis Reformatory?" inquired the Director of Public Instruction from theChair.

  Anything but that. They were to understand, on the contrary, that thebabu was respectfully a most unprecedented disciplinarian.

  "You don't expect cock angels in a Reformatory, y' know," said theengineer, suddenly awaking to light a fat black cheroot. "Got to usethe--ah--strong hand;--on their--ah--_you_ know," and he resumed hisslumbers, puffing mechanically and unconsciously at his cheroot.

  So Moussa Isa was flogged and sent back to gardening, lessons anddrawing.

  Yes--the Somali was taught drawing. Not mere utilitarian drawing-to-scaleand making plans and elevations, but "freehand"-drawing, the reproducingof meaningless twirly curves and twiddly twists from symmetricalconventional "copies". He copied copies and drew lines--but never copiedthings, nor drew things. In time he could, with infinite labour, producea copy of a flat "copy" that a really observant eye could identify withthe original, but had you asked him to draw his foot or the door of theroom, his desk, his watering-can or book, he would probably havereplied, "_They_ are not drawing-copies," and would have laughed at yourabsurd joke. No, he was not taught to draw _things_, nor to giveexpression to impression.

  And he had a special warder all to himself, who watched him as a catwatches a mouse. However, warders cannot prevent looks and smiles, andwhenever Moussa Isa saw the Brahmin youth, he gave a peculiar look and ameaning smile. It was borne in upon the clever young man that the Hubshilooked at his neck, below his ear, when he smiled that dreadful smile.

  Sometimes a significant gesture accompanied the meaning smile. ForMoussa Isa had decided, upon the rejection of his prayer by theCommittee, to wait until he was a little older and bigger, more like aproper criminal and less of a wretched little "juvenile offender," andthen to qualify, by murder, for the Aden Jail--with the unoffered helpof the Brahmin boy.

  Allah would vouchsafe opportunity, and when he did so, Moussa Isa, hisservant, would seize it. Doubtless it would come as soon as he was bigenough to receive the privileges of an adult and serious criminal.Anyhow, the insult would be properly punished and the honour of theSomal race avenged....

  Came the day when certain of the sinful inhabitants of the DuriReformatory were to be conducted to a neighbouring Government HighSchool, a centre for the official Drawing Examinations for the district,there to sit and be examined in the gentle art of Art.

  To this end they had been trained in the copying of lines and in thepainting of areas of conventional shape, not that they might be made toobserve natural form, express themselves in reproduction, render theinner outer, originate, articulate ... but that they might pass anexamination in copying unnatural things in impossible colours. Thus itcame to pass that, in the big hall of this school, divers of theReformed found themselves copying, and colouring the copy of, a curiouspicture pinned to a blackboard--the picture of a floral wonder unknownto Botany, possessed of delicate mauve leaves, blue-veined, shaped somelike the oak-leaf and some like the ivy; of long slender blades likethose of the iris, but of tenderest pink; of beautiful and profuselychromatic blossoms, reminding one now of the orchid, now of thesunflower and anon of the forget-me-not; and likewise of clusteringfulgent fruit.

  And at the back of all these budding artists and blossoming jail-birds,and in the same small desk sat the Brahmin youth and--Oh MercifulAllah!--Moussa Isa, Somali.

  The native gentleman in charge of the party from the Duri Reformatoryhad duly escorted his charges into the hall, handed them over to Mr.Edward Jones, the Head of the High School, and been requested to waitoutside with similar custodians of parties. (Mr. Edward Jones had knownvery strange things to happen in Examination Halls to which the friendsand supporters of candidates had access during the examination.)

  To Mr. Edward Jones the thus deserted Brahmin boy made frantic andpiteous appeal.

  "Oh, Sir," prayed he, "let me sit somewhere else and not beside thisAfrican."

  "You'll stay where you are," replied Mr. Edward Jones, suspicious of theappeal and the appellant. If the fat glib youth objected to the Africanon principle, Mr. Edward Jones would be glad, metaphorically speaking,to rub his Brahminical nose in it. If this were not his reason, it was,doubtless, one even less creditable. Mr. Edward Jones had been in Indialong enough to learn to look very carefully for the motive.

  Moussa Isa licked his chops once again, and, as Mr. Jones turned away,the unhappy Brahmin cried in his anguish of soul:--

  "Oh, Sir! Watch this African carefully."

  "All will be watched carefully," was the suspicious and cold reply.

  Moussa smiled broadly upon his erstwhile contemptuous and insultingenemy, and began to consider the possibilities of a long andwell-pointed lead-pencil as a means of vengeance. Pencils were intendedfor marking fair surfaces--might one not be used on this occasion forthe cleaning of a sullied surface, that of a besmirched honour?

  One insulter of the Somal race had died by the stab of a piece of brokenbottle. Might not another die by the stab of a lead-pencil?

  Doubtful. Very risky. The stabbing and piercing potentialities of a leadpencil are not yet properly investigated, tabulated, established andknown. It would be a pity to do small damage and incur a heavycorn-grinding punishment. He might never get another chance ofvengeance either, if he bungled this one.

  Well, there were three hours in which to decide ... and Moussa Isacommenced to draw, pausing, from time to time, to smile meaningly at theBrahmin, and to lick his chops suggestively. Anon he rested from hishighly uninteresting and valueless labours, laid his pencil on the desk,and gazed around in search of inspiration in the matter of the bestmethod of dealing with his enemy.

  His eye fell upon a picture of a lion that ornamented the wall of thehall; he stiffened like a pointer and fingered some scars on his rightarm. He had never seen a picture of a lion before and, for a fraction ofa second, he was shocked and alarmed--and then, while his body sat in anIndian High School hall, his spirit flew to an East African desert, andthere sojourned awhile.

  Moussa Isa was again the slave of an ivory-poaching, hide-poaching,specimen-poaching, slave-dealing gang of Arabs, Negroes, and Portuguesehalf-castes, led by a white man of the Teutonic persuasion. He couldfeel the smiting heat, see the scrub, jungle, and sand shimmering anddancing in the heat haze. He could see the line of porters, bales onheads, the Arabs on horseback, the white man in a litter swinging from along bamboo pole beneath which half a dozen Swahili loped along. Hecould see the velvet star-gemmed night and the camp-fires, smell thesmoke and the savoury odours of the cooking, hear the sudden shrieks andyells that followed the roar of the springing lion, feel the crushingcrunch of its great teeth in his arm as it seized him from beside thenearest fire and stood over him.... Yes, that was the night when thefair Sheikh from the North had showed the mettle of his pastures andbound Moussa Isa to him for ever in the bonds of worshipping gratitudeand love. For, while others shrieked, yelled, fled, flung burning brandsand spears, or fired hasty, unaimed, ineffectual shots, the fair Sheikhfrom the North had sprung at the lion as it stood over Moussa Isa anddriven
his knife into its eye, and as it smote him to the earth, buriedits fangs in his shoulder and started to drag him away, had stabbedupward between the ribs, giving it a second death-blow, transfixing itsheart. Thus it was he had earned the name by which he was known fromZanzibar to Berbera, "He-who-slays-lions-with-the-knife," had earned theenvy and hatred of the fat white man and the Arabs, the boundlessadmiration of the Swahili askaris, hunters and porters, and the deepdog-like affection of Moussa Isa....

  And then Moussa's spirit returned to his body and he saw but the pictureof a lion on a High School wall. He commenced to draw again and suddenlyhad an inspiration. Deliberately he broke the point of his pencil and,rising, marched up to the dais, whereon, at a table, sat Mr. EdwardJones.

  Mr. Edward Jones had been shot with bewildering suddenness fromCambridge quadrangles into the Indian Educational Service. Of India heknew nothing, of education he knew less, but boldly took it upon him tocombine the two unknowns for the earning of his living. If wise andbeneficent men offered him a modest wage for becoming a professor andexponent of that which he did not know, he had no objection to acceptingit; but there were people who wondered why it should be that, out offorty million English people, Mr. Edward Jones should be the chosen oneto represent England to the youth of Duri, and asked whether there wereno keen, strictly conscientious, sporting, strong Englishmen available;no enthusiastic educational experts left in all the British Isles, thatMr. Edward Jones of all people had come to Duri?

  "What do you want?" he asked (how he hated these poverty-stricken,smelly, ignoble creatures. Why was he not a master at Eton, instead ofat Duri High School. Why wouldn't somebody give him a handsome incomefor looking handsome and standing around beautifully--like theseaide-de-camp Johnnies and "staff" people. Since there was nothing onearth he could do well, he ought to have been provided with a job inwhich he could look well).

  "May I borrow the Sahib's knife?" asked Moussa Isa, "I have broken mypencil and cannot draw." Mr. Edward Jones picked up the penknife thatlay on his desk, the cheap article of restricted utility supplied toGovernment Offices by the Stationery Department, and handed it to MoussaIsa. Even as he took it with respectful salaam, Moussa Isa summed up itspossibilities. Blade two inches long, sharp-pointed, handle six incheslong, wooden; not a clasp knife, blade immovable in handle. It woulddo--and he turned to go to his seat and presumably to sharpen hispencil.

  Idly watching the boy and thinking of other things, Jones saw him trythe point of the knife on his thumb, walk up behind the other occupantof his desk, his Brahmin neighbour, seize that neighbour by the hair,push his head sharp over on to the shoulder, and plunge the knife intohis neck; seat himself, and commence to draw with the unfortunateBrahmin's pencil.

  Jones sprang to his feet and rushed to the spot, to find that he had notbeen dreaming. No--on the back seat drooped a boy bleeding like a stuckpig and another industriously drawing, his face illuminated by a smileof contentment.

  Jones pressed his thumbs into the neck of the sufferer, as he called toan assistant-supervisor to run to the hospital for Dr. Almeida, hopingto be able to close the severed jugular from which welled an appallingstream of blood.

  "It is quite useless, Sahib," observed Moussa, "nor can a doctor help.When one has got it _there_, he may give his spear to his son and turnhis face to the wall. That dog will never say '_Hubshi_' to a Somalagain."

  "Catch hold of that boy," said Mr. Edward Jones to anotherassistant-supervisor who clucked around like a perturbed hen.

  "Fear not, Sahib, I shall not escape. I go to Aden Jail," said Moussacheerfully--but he pondered the advisability of attempting escape fromthe Reformatory should he be sentenced to be hanged. It had alwaysseemed an impossibility, but it would be better to attempt theimpossible than to await the rope. But doubtless they would say he wastoo small and light to hang satisfactorily, and would send him to Aden.Thanks, Master Brahmin, realize as you die that you have greatly obligedyour slayer....

  * * * * *

  "Now you will most certainly be hanged to death by rope and I shall berid of troublesome fellow," said the Superintendent to Moussa Isa whenthat murderous villain was temporarily handed over to him by thepolice-sepoy to whom he had been committed by Mr. Jones.

  "I have avenged my people and myself," replied Moussa Isa, "even as Isaid, I go to Aden Jail--where there are _men_, and where a Somal isknown from a Hubshi"

  "You go to hang--across the road there at Duri Gaol," replied the babu,and earnestly hoped to find himself a true prophet. But though the wishwas father to the thought, the expression thereof was but the wickeduncle, for it led to the undoing of the wish. So convinced andconvincing did the babu appear to Moussa Isa, that the latter decided totry his luck in the matter of unauthorized departure from theReformatory precincts. If they were going to hang him (for defending andpurging his private and racial honour), and not send him to Aden afterall, he might as well endeavour to go there at his own expense andindependently. If he were caught they could not do more than hang him;if he were not caught he would get out of this dark ignorant land, if hehad to walk for a year....

  When he came to devote his mind to the matter of escape, Moussa Isafound it surprisingly easy. A sudden dash from his cell as the door wasincautiously opened that evening, a bound and scramble into a tree, aleap to an out-house roof, another scramble, and a drop which wouldsettle the matter. If something broke he was done, if nothing broke hewas within a few yards of six-foot-high crops which extended to theconfines of the jungle, wherein were neither police, telegraph offices,railways, roads, nor other apparatus of the enemy. Nothing broke--DuriReformatory saw Moussa Isa no more. For a week he travelled only bynight, and thereafter boldly by day, getting lifts in _bylegharies_,[45]doing odd jobs, living as the crows and jackals live when jobs wereunavailable, receiving many a kindness from other wayfarers, especiallythose of the poorer sort, but always faring onward to the West, everonward to the setting sun, always to the sea and Africa, until thewonderful and blessed day when he believed for a moment that he was madand that his eyes and brain were playing him tricks.... After months andmonths of weary travel, always toward the setting sun, he had arrivedone terrible evening of June at a wide river and a marvellous bridge--agreat bridge hung by mighty chains upon mightier posts which stood up oneither distant bank. It was a _pukka_ road, a Grand Trunk Road suspendedin the air across a river well-nigh great as Father Nile himself.

  [45] Bullock carts.

  On the banks of this river stood an ancient walled city of tall housesseparated by narrow streets, a city of smells and filth, wherein therewere no Sahibs, few Hindus and many Mussulmans. In a mud-flooredmiserable _mussafarkhana_,[46] without its gates, Moussa Isa slept,naked, hungry and very sad--for he somehow seemed to have missed thesea. Surely if one kept on due westward always to the setting sun, onereached the sea in time? The time was growing long, however, and he wasamong a strange people, few of whom understood the Hindustani he hadlearnt at Duri. Luckily they were largely Mussulmans. Should he abandonthe setting sun and take to the river, following it until it reached thesea? He could take ship then for Africa by creeping aboard in thedarkness, and hiding himself until the ship had started.... There mightbe no city at the mouth of the river when he got there. It might neverreach the sea. It might just vanish into some desert like theWebi-Shebeyli in Somaliland. No, he would keep on toward the West,crossing the great bridge in the morning. He did so, and turned asideto admire the railway-station of the Cantonment on the other side of theriver, to get a drink, and to see a train come in, if happily such mightoccur.

  [46] Poor travellers' rest-house.

  Ere he had finished rinsing his mouth and bathing his feet at the publicwater-standard on the platform, the whistle of a distant train charmedhis ears and he sat him down, delighted, to enjoy the sights and sounds,the stir and bustle, of its arrival and departure. And so it came aboutthat certain passengers by this North West Frontier train were not alittle intrigued to notice a s
mall and very black boy suddenly arisefrom beside the drinking-fountain and, with a strange hoarse scream,fling himself at the feet of a young Englishman (who in Norfolk jacketand white flannel trousers strolled up and down outside the first-classcarriage in which he was travelling to Kot Ghazi from Karachi), and withevery sign of the wildest excitement and joy embrace and kiss hisboots....

  Moussa Isa was convinced that he had gone mad and that his eyes andbrain were playing him tricks.

  Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison (also Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir HafizUllah Khan when in other dress and other places) was likewise more thana little surprised--and certainly a little moved, at the sight of MoussaIsa and his wild demonstrations of uncontrollable joy.

  "Well, I'm damned!" said he in the _role_ of Mr. John RobinRoss-Ellison. "Rum little devil. Fancy your turning up here." And in the_role_ of Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan added indebased Arabic: "Take this money, little dog, and buy thee a _tikkut_to Kot Ghazi. Get into this train, and at Kot Ghazi follow me to ahouse."

  To the house Moussa Isa followed him and to the end of his lifelikewise, visiting _en route_ Mekran Kot, among other places, andencountering one, Ilderim the Weeper, among other people (as was told toMajor Michael Malet-Marsac by Ross-Ellison's half-brother, theSubedar-Major.)

  CHAPTER III.

  THE WOMAN.

  (And Augustus Grabble; General Murger; Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith;Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green; Mr. Horace Faggit; as well as areformed JOHN ROBIN ROSS-ELLISON.)

 

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