Chapter II: The Boy (1)

(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 nor cowardly--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 must have fallen with an acceleration of velocity of thirty-two feet per second, each second, and be conceded that he weighed a good average number of pounds, some idea will be formed of the violence of the concussion with which he came to earth.

In spite of the terrible warning provided by so great a smash there yet remain people who will argue that it is better to fall through Pride than to remain unfallen through lack of it. By Pride, _Pride_ is meant of course--not Conceit, Snobbishness and Bumptiousness, which are all very damnable, and signs of a weak, base mind. One gathers that Lucifer, Son of the Morning, was not conceited, snobbish, nor bumptious. Nor was Moussa, 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 unwilling admiration for Lucifer, Son of the Morning--people of the same sort as those who find it difficult wholly to revere the prideless Erect when comparing them with the prideful Fallen--and, for the life of me, I cannot help a sneaking liking and unwilling admiration for Moussa Isa Somali, who fell through Pride.

There was something fine about him, even as there was about Lucifer, Son of the Morning, and one cannot avoid feeling that if both did not get more of hard luck and less of justice than some virtuous people one knows, they certainly cut a better figure. Of course it is a mistake to adopt any line of action that leads definitely to the position of Under-Dog, and to fight when you cannot win. It is not Prudent, and Prudence leads to Favour, Success, Decorations, and the Respect of Others if not of yourself. It is also to be remembered that whether you are a Wicked Rebel or a Noble True-Hearted Patriot depends very largely on whether you succeed or fail.

All of which is mere specious and idle special pleading on behalf of Moussa 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 are no memories concerning him. The might, majesty, dominion and power of the British Empire were arrayed against him, and the Empire's duly appointed agents hanged him by the neck until he was dead--at an age when some people are yet at school, albeit he had gathered in his few years of life a quantity and quality of experience quite remarkable.

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

He was black, he was filthy, he was savage, ignorant and ugly--but he had 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 a low 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 you down 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, he would have been highly praised for his fine and proper spirit. Poet, bard, and troubadour would have noted and published his quickness on the point of honour. Moussa would have been set to music and have become a source of income to the gifted. He would have become a Pillar of the Order of Knighthood and an Ornament of the Age of Chivalry. A wreath of laurels would have encircled his brow--instead of a rope of hemp encircling 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 his own lips, of the killing of some few. Of the killing of others he had forgotten, for his memory was poor, save for insult and kindness. And, having caught and convicted him in one or two cases the appointed servants of the British Empire first "reformed" and then slew him in their turn--thus descending to his level without his excuse of private personal insult and injury....

The scars on Moussa Isa's face with the hole in his ear were connected with one of his very earliest memories--or one of his very earliest memories was connected with the scars on his face and the hole in his ear--a memory of jolting along on a camel, swinging upside-down, while a strong hand grasped his foot; of seeing his father rush at his captor with a long, broad-bladed spear, of being whirled and flung at his father's head; and of seeing his father's intimate internal economy seriously and permanently disarranged by the two-handed sword of one of the camel rider's colleagues (who flung aside a heavy gun which he had just emptied into Moussa's mamma) as his father fell to the ground under the impact and weight of the novel missile. Though Moussa was unaware, in his abysmal ignorance, of the interesting fact, the great two-handed sword so effectually wielded by the supporter of his captor, was exactly like 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 Crusaders who had brought the first specimens to the country, quite a good many years previously. Indeed some people said that a few of the swords owned by these Dervishes were real, original, Crusaders' swords, the very weapons whose hilts were once grasped by Norman hands, and whose blades had cloven Paynim heads in the name of Christianity and the interests of the Sepulchre. I do not know--but it is a wonderfully dry climate, and swords are there kept, cherished, and bequeathed, even more religiously than were the Stately Homes of England in that once prosperous 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 dead Somali spearmen and swordsmen, of horses, asses, camels, negroes, (old) women and other cattle--and, crawling off again, received kicks and orders to clean and polish certain much ensanguined weapons sullied with the blood of his near and distant relatives. Thereafter he was recognized by the above-mentioned swordsman, and accorded the privilege of removing his own father's blood from the great two-handed sword before alluded to--a task of a kind that does not fall to many little boys. So willingly and cheerfully did Moussa perform his arduous duty (arduous because the blood had had time to dry, and dried blood takes a lot of removing from steel by one unprovided with hot water) that the Arab swordsman instead of blowing off the child's head with his long and beautiful gun, damascened of barrel, gold-mounted of lock, and pearl-inlaid of stock, allowed him to rim for his life that he might die a sporting death in hot blood, doing his devilmost. (These were not slavers but avengers of enmity to the Mad Mullah and punishers of friendship 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 me die 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 to evading the shot of the common fighting-man whom he had propitiatorily addressed as "_Emir_," though a mere wearer of a single fillet of camel-hair cord around his _haik_. Like a naval gunner--the Arab laid his gun and waited till the sights "came on," fired, and had the satisfaction of seeing the child fling up his arms, leap into the air and fall twitching to the ground. Good shot! The twitches and the last convulsive spasm were highly artistic and creditable to the histrionic powers of Moussa Isa, shot through the ear, and inwardly congratulating himself that he had yet a chance. But then he had had wide opportunity for observation, and plenty of good models, in the matter of sudden-death spasms and twitches, so the credit is the less. Anyhow, it deceived experienced Arab eyes at a hundred yards, and the performance may therefore be classed as good. To the reflective person it will be manifest that Moussa's reverence for the sanctity of human life received but little encouragement or development from the very beginning....

Returning refugees, a few days later, found Moussa very pleased-with himself and very displeased with uncooked putrid flesh. Being exceedingly poor and depressed as a result of the Mad Mullah's vengeful _razzia_, they sold Moussa Isa, friendless, kinless orphan, and once again cursed the false English who made them great promises in the Mahdi's troublous day, and abandoned them to the Mad Mullah and his Dervishes as soon as the Mahdi was happily dead.

The Mad Mullah they could understand; the English they could not. For the Mad Mullah they had no blame whatsoever; for the English they had the bitterest blame, the deepest hatred and the uttermost contempt. Who blames the lion for seeking and slaying his prey? Who defends the unspeakable creature that throws its friends and children to the lion--in payment of its debts and in cancellation of its obligations to those friends and children? In discussing the raid on their way to market with Moussa Isa, they mentioned the name of the Mad Mullah with respect and fear. When they mentioned the English they expectorated and made a gesture too significant to be particularized. And the tom-toms once again throbbed through the long nights, sending (by a code that was before Morse) from village to village, from the sea to the Nile, from the Nile to the Niger and the Zambesi, from the Mediterranean to the Cape, the news that once more the Mad Mullah had flouted that failing and treacherous race, the English, and slaughtered those who lived within their gates, under the shadow of their flag and the promise of their protection.

Ere Moussa Isa got his next prominent scar, the signal-drums throbbed out the news that the gates were thrown open, the flag hauled down, and the promises shamefully broken. That the representatives of the failing treacherous race now stood huddled along the sea-shore in fear and trembling, while those who had helped them in their trouble and had believed their word were slaughtered by the thousand; that the country was the home of fire and sword, the oasis-fields yielding nothing but corpses, the wells choked with dead ... red slaughter, black pestilence, starvation, misery and death, where had been green cultivation, fenced villages, the sound of the quern and the well-wheel, the song of women and the cry of the ploughman to his oxen. News and comments which did nothing to lessen the pride and insolence of the Jubaland tribesmen, of the Wak tribesmen, of the bold Zubhier sons of the desert, nor to strike terror 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 and smooth contours of Moussa's throat and another memory was as indelibly established in his mind as was the said scar on his flesh.

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

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, or taking a trick at the wheel--another clothes-prop with a large disc of wood at the water-end, were far above work.

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

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

The gentle breeze that (sometimes) carries you steadily over a glassy sea straight up the forty-fifth meridian of east longitude from Berbera to 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 was Moussa Isa, and so the becalming was neither here nor there. The cargo would keep (if kept dry) for many a long day--and the greater the delay in delivery, the greater the impatience of the consignees and their willingness to pay even more than the stipulated price--its weight in silver _per_ rifle. But food is made for men as well as slaves, and if you, in your noble trustfulness, resolutely decline to reduce your daily rations, there must, with mathematical certitude of date, arrive the final period to any given and limited supply. Though banking wholly with Heaven in the matter of their own salvation from hunger, the Argonauts displayed mere worldly wisdom in the case of Moussa Isa and gave him the minimum of food that might be calculated to keep within him strength adequate to his duties of steering, swarming up the mast, baling, cooking, massaging the liver of the Leading Gentleman, and so forth. And in due course, the calm continuing, these pious and religious voyagers came to the bitter end of their water, their rice, their _dhurra_, their dates--and all (except the salt and coffee which formed part of the ostensible, bogus cargo) that they had, as they too-slowly drifted into the track of those vessels that enter and leave the strait of Bab-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 the third day of absolute starvation, one had an Idea and made a suggestion.

The Leading Gentleman entertained it with an open mind and without enthusiasm.

The Tanga tout acclaimed it as a divine inspiration.

The one-eyed Moor literally smiled upon it. As his eye was single and his body therefore full of light, he saw the beauty of the notion at once. Had it been full of food instead, we may charitably suppose he would 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 beamed effulgent with benevolence and virtue, murmured:--

"He will have but little blood, the dog. None of it must be--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 in concentric circles on the chest (done with loving care and a knife, in his infancy, by his papa) said only "_Ptwack_" as he chewed a mouthful of coffee-beans and hide. It may have been a pious ejaculation or a whole speech in his own peculiar vernacular. It was a tremendous smacking of tremendous lips, and the expression which overspread his speaking countenance was of gusto, appreciative, and such as accords with lip-smacking.

But a very fair man (very fair beside the Negroes, Somalis, Arabs and others our little black and brown brothers), a man with grey-blue eyes, light brown hair and moustache, and olive complexion, said to the originator 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 face which undoubtedly lent itself to very clear expression of such feelings as contempt, disgust and scorn, an unusual face, with the thin high-bridged nose of an English aristocrat, the large eyes and pencilled black brows of an Indian noble, the sallow yet cheek-flushed complexion of an Italian peasant-girl, and the firm lips, square jaw, and prominent chin of a fighting-man. It was essentially an English face in expression, and essentially foreign in detail; a face of extraordinary contradictions. The eyes were English in colour, Oriental in size and shape; the mouth and chin English in mould and in repose, Oriental in mobility and animation; the whole countenance English in shape, Oriental in complexion and profile--a fine, high-bred, strong face, upon which played shadows of cruelty, ferocity, diabolical cunning; a face admired more 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 the powerful and purposeful thumb of the West; hands with the supple artistic 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 could have replied to the query "What is your name?" with "My name? Well, in full, it is John Robin Ross-Ellison Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan, and its explanation is my descent from General Ross-Ellison, Laird of Glencairn, and from Mir Faquir Mahommed Afzul Khan, Jam of Mekran Kot".

In Piccadilly, wearing the garb of Piccadilly, he looked an Englishman of 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 sunburnt than the average lounger in Piccadilly; in the latter, rather fairer than the average Afghan and Pathan loafer in Abdul Rehman Bazaar.

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

"You observed, my friend?" queried the Leading Gentleman (whose father was the son of a Negro-Arab who married, or should have married, a Jewess captured near Fez, and whose mother was the daughter of a Tunisian 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 is but natural for dogs to prey upon dogs."

"There are times when the lion is driven to prey upon dogs, my dear son," interposed the mild-eyed, benevolent-looking Arab--a pensive smile on 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 the white beard, scanty locks and mumbling mouth of the ancient gentleman had an unpleasantly personal quality. To the casual on-looker it would have seemed that an impudent boy deliberately insulted a harmless benevolent old gentleman. To the fair young man, however, it was well known that the old gentleman's name was famous across Northern and Eastern Africa for monstrous villainy and fiendish cruelty--the name of the worst and wickedest of those traders in "black ivory," one of whose side-lines is frequently gun-running. Also he knew that the benevolent-looking old dear was desirous that the Leading Gentleman, his partner, should join with him in a little scheme (a scheme revealed by one Moussa Isa, eaves-dropper) to give the fair young man some inches of steel instead of the pounds of Teutonic gold due for services (and rifles) rendered, when they should reach the quiet spot on the northern shore of the Persian Gulf where certain bold caravan-leaders would await them and their precious cargo--a scheme condemned by the Leading Gentleman on the grounds of the folly of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. But then the wealthy Arab patriarch was retiring from the risky business (already nearly ruined and destroyed by English gun-boats) after that trip, and the Leading Gentleman was not. Thus it was that the attitude of the fair young man toward Sheikh Abou ben Mustapha Muscati did not display that degree of respect that his grey hairs and beautiful old face would appear to deserve.

The French-speaking Moslem Berber _ex_-Zouave, from Algiers, suggested that Moussa Isa, a slave, was certainly not fitting food for gentlemen who fight, hunt, travel, poach elephants, deal in "black ivory," run guns, 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 to live--and therefore one eats" and he cocked a yellow and appraising eye at Moussa Isa. The sense of the meeting appeared to be that though one would not have chosen this particular animal, necessity knows no rule--and if the throat be cut while the animal be alive, one may eat of the 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 two feet of blade, observed that it was now likely that there would be a plethora of food, as he would most assuredly cut the throat of any throat-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 an intelligent dog.

The venerable Arab smiled meaningly at the Leading Gentleman, and the Tanga 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 urge it. Live and let live. The gentlemen were hungry; ..." but the fair young man unreasonably replied, "Then let them eat _thee_ since they can stomach carrion," and for the moment the subject dropped--largely because the fair young man was supposed always to carry a revolver, which was not a habit of his good colleagues. It was another evidence of his strange duality that revolver and knife were (rare phenomenon) equally acceptable to him, though in certain environment the pistol rather suggested itself to his left hand, while in others his right hand went quite unconsciously to his long knife.

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

The Leading Gentleman looked many times and hard at Moussa Isa during the second day of his own starvation, which was the third of that of his companions and the fourth of Moussa's. The Leading Gentleman, who was as rich 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 with tassels of cowrie-shells) hailed from Damascus and had a handle of ivory and gold, and an inlaid blade on which were inscribed verses from the Q'ran.

Moussa Isa knew the pattern of it well by the close of day. The Leading Gentleman took that evening to sharpening the already sharp blade of the knife. As he sharpened it on his sandal and the side of the boat, and tried its edge on his thumb, he regarded the thin body of Moussa Isa very 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 which evoked from the fair youth the reply: "And so will you".

Perhaps truth covered and excused a certain indelicacy and callousness in the statement of the Leading Gentleman, albeit the fair young man appeared annoyed at it. His British blood and instincts became predominant 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 will have little fat," and there was bitterness in his tone. As a business man he realized a bad investment of capital. The food in which they had wallowed should have gone to the fattening of Moussa Isa. Also a fear struck him.

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

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

"See, my friend," said the Leading Gentleman, "it is a case of one or many. 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 are not in the debt of the slave. We _are_ in the debt of the Sheikh. It would cancel all obligations if the Sheikh from the North preferred to offer himself as--"

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

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

[41] Small dug-out canoe.

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

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

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

"Doubtless," agreed the Leading Gentleman, "he will swim the 2000 miles to India, and then up the Indus to Attock." And added, "But, bear witness all, if the young devil turn up again some day, that _I_ had no quarrel with him.... A pity! A pity!... Where shall we find his like, a Prank 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 at home as gentleman or tribesman? Where shall we find his like again as gatherer of the yellow honey of Berlin and as negotiator in Marseilles (where the discarded Gras breech-loaders of the army grow) and in Muscat? 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 a handsome 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 me annually in gold."

"No, you won't see him again," agreed the Arab. "He'll hardly swim to Aden--apart from the little matter of sharks.... A pity the sharks should have so fair a body--and we starve!" and he turned a fatherly benevolent eye on Moussa Isa--whom a tall slender black Arab, from the hills about Port Sudan, of the true "fuzzy-wuzzy" type, had seized in his 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 Moussa Isa (who struggled, kicked, bit and finding resistance hopeless, screamed, "Follow the boat, Master," as he lay on his back), was bound to a cracked and salt-encrusted beam or seat that supported, or was supported by, the cracked and salt-encrusted sides of the canoe-shaped vessel.

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

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

Although very hungry and rather weak they were in different case from that of European castaway sailors, in that all were inured to long periods of fasting, all had crossed the Sahara or the Sus, lived for days on a handful of dates, and had tightened the waist-string by way of a 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 masses of hippopotamus-flesh to-day, and starving for a week thereafter; pounds of prime meat to-day, gnawing hunger and the weakness of semi-starvation for the next month.

"At sunrise," said the Leading Gentleman finality.

Good! That left the so-desirable element of chance. It left opportunity for change of programme inasmuch as sunrise might disclose help in the shape of a passing ship. The matter would rest with Heaven, and pious men 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 this flesh, other would be provided; should other not be provided it was clearly 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 gratefully trustful, trustfully grateful. But Moussa Isa watched the wondrous lustrous stars throughout the age-long, flash-short night and thought of many things.

Had the splendid, noble Sheikh from the North heard his cry and had he found the _toni_? How far had he swum ere his strength gave out or, with sudden swirl, he was dragged under by the man-eating shark? Would he remove his long cotton shirt, velvet waistcoat and baggy cotton trousers? The latter would present difficulties, for the waist-string would tangle and the water would swell the knot and prevent the drawing of 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 to his heart to do that, both for the sake of the weapon itself and because he would have to go to his death unavenged, seized by a shark without giving it its death-wound. Had he heard and would he follow the boat in the moonlight, find the _toni_ and escape? Could he swim to Aden? They had said not--even leaving sharks out of consideration, and indeed it must be forty or fifty miles away. Judging by their progress they must have done about one hundred and fifty miles since they embarked at the lonely spot on the Berbera coast for the other lonely spot on the Aden coast, where certain whisperings with certain mysterious camel-riders would preface their provisioning for the voyage along the weary Hadramant coast to the Ras el Had and Muscat--just a humble boat-load of poor but honest toilers and tradesmen, interested in dried fish, dates, the pearl-fishery and the pettiest trading. No, he would never reach land, wonderful swimmer as he was. He would be lost in the sea as is the Webi Shebeyli River in the sands of the South, unless he followed the drifting 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 the extraordinary luck to be seen by dhow or ship before dark. That could hardly be, unless the same ship or dhow were visible from their own boat, and none had been seen.

No, he must be dead--and Moussa Isa would shortly follow him. How he wished he could have given his life to save him. Had he known, he would have cried out, "Let them eat me, O Master," and prevented him from risking his life. If he should get the chance of striking one blow for his life in the morning he would bestow it upon the scar-faced beast who had tripped the fair Sheik overboard. If he could strike two he would give the second to the old Arab who flogged women and children to death with the _kourbash_,[42] as an amusement, and whose cruelties were famous in a cruel land; the old Evil who hated, and plotted the death of, the fair Sheikh, with the leader of the expedition in order that they might divide his large share of the gun-running proceeds and German subsidy. If he could strike a third blow it should be at the filthy Hubshi of the Aruwimi, the low degraded Woolly One from the dark Interior (of human sacrifice, cannibalism and ju-ju) who had proposed eating him. Yes--if he could grab the leader's knife and deal three such stabs as the Sheikh dealt the lion, at these three, he could die content. But this was absurd! They would _halal_ him first, of course, and unbind him afterwards.... They might unbind him first though, so as to place him favourably with regard to--economy. They would use the empty army-ration tin, shining there like silver in the moonlight, the tin with which he had done so much weary baling. Doubtless the leader and the Arab would share its contents. He grudged it them, and hoped a quarrel and struggle might arise and cause it to be spilt.

[42] Rhinoceros-hide whip.

An unpleasant death! Without cowardice one might dislike the thought of having one's throat cut while one's hands were bound and one watched the blood gushing into an old army-ration tin. Perhaps there would be none to gush--and a good job too. Serve them right. Could he cut his wrists on a nail or a splinter or with the cords, and cheat them, if there were any 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 a shovel-headed spear, a thwack in the head with a hammered slug, a sweep at the neck with a big sword--but to have a person sawing at your throat with weak and shaking hands is rotten....

One quite appreciated that masters must eat and slaves must die, and the religious necessity for cutting the throat while the animal is alive, according to the Law--and there was great comfort in the fact that the leader's knife was inscribed with verses of the Q'ran and would probably be used for the job. (The leader liked jobs of that sort.) Countless it would confer distinction in Paradise upon one already distinguished as having died to provide food for a band of right-thinking, religious-minded gentlemen, who, even in such terrible straits, forgot not the Law nor omitted the ceremonies....

Where now was the fair-faced master who so resembled the English but was so much braver, fiercer, so much more staunch? Though fair as they, and knowing their speech, he could not be of a race that led whole tribes to trust in them, called them "Friendlies" and then forsook them; came to them in the day of trouble asking help, and then scuttled away and deserted their allies, leaving them to face alone the Power whose wrath and vengeance their help-giving had provoked. Yet there were good men among them--there was Kafil[43] Bey for example. Kafil Bey whose last noble fight he had witnessed. If the fair-faced Sheikh had any of the weak 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? To think that _he_ should have come to his death over such a thing as a slave boy (albeit a Somali and no Hubshi).

This was an Emir indeed.

An idea!... He called aloud: "Are you there, Master? The _toni_ is loose and must be near," again and again, louder and louder. Perhaps he was following 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 lying head-to-foot beside him. The neighbour snored loudly and turned his face sideways under the foot. He had slept standing jammed against the wall in 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, and immediately scratched his ribs like a monkey.... Moussa Isa held his peace.

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

Could it be near dawn already, and were his proprietors waking up? He could see no change in the East, no paling of the lustrous stars. Was it an hour ago or eight hours ago that the night had fallen? Had he an hour to live or a night? Would he ever see Berbera again, steer a boat down its deep inlet, gaze upon its two lighthouses, its fort, hospital, barracks, piers, warehouses, bazaars; drive a camel along by its seven miles of aqueduct, look down from the hills upon this wonderful and mighty metropolis, greater and grander than Jibuti, Zeyla, Bulhar and Karam, surely the greatest and most marvellous port and city of the world, ere driving on through the thorn-bush and acacia-jungle into the vast 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? The sky was paling in the East, growing grey, a rose-pink flush on the horizon--dawn and death were at hand.

Before the heralds of the sun, the moon slowly veiled her face with lightest gossamer while the weaker stars fled. The daily miracle and common marvel proceeded before the tired eyes of the bound slave; the rim of the sun appeared above the rim of the sea; the moon more deeply veiled her face from the fierce red eye, and gracefully and gradually retired before the advance of the usurping conqueror--and the slave seemed to hear the fat croaking voice of the leader saying, "At sunrise".

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

The man with the geometrical pattern of scars on his face and chest suddenly sat bolt upright like a released spring, yawned, looked at the sky and the limp sail, and then at Moussa Isa. As his eye fell upon the boy he smiled copiously, protruded a very red tongue between very white teeth, and licked huge blue-black lips. He leaned over and awakened the Leading Gentleman. Then he pointed to the Victim. Both watched the horizon where, beyond distant Bombay and China, the sun was appearing, rising with the rapidity of the minute hand of a big clock. Neither looked to the West.

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

The one-eyed person looked more disappointed than pleased, and observed to 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 expressive countenance seemed to say, "He is food--but he is poor food".

Nevertheless an unmistakable look of relief overspread his face as the Leading 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 beamed upon Moussa Isa, doubtless with the said light of which his body was full, in consequence of his singleness of vision. The whole party was by this time awake and Moussa Isa the cynosure of neighbouring eyes. The Leading Gentleman drew his beautiful knife from its tawdry sheath and gave it a last loving strop on his horny palm.

Willing hands dragged the head of Moussa Isa across the beam and willing bodies sat upon him, that he might not waste time, and something more precious, by thoughtless wriggling, delaying breakfast. The Leading Gentleman crawled to an advantageous position, and having bowed in prayer, 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 and sawing at the gullet. Knew the clumsy fumbler nothing of big blood-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 which died away on a curious bubbling note and he grew faint.

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

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

Good! Here came water, rice, bread, sugar, flour, and perhaps meat, for poor castaways, and probably money--from kindly lady-passengers, this last, for the ship was obviously a liner. The wretched Moussa Isa's carcase was now superfluous--nay dangerous, and must be disposed of at once, for Europeans are most kittle cattle. They will exterminate your tribe with machine-guns, gin, small-pox, and still nastier things, but they 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 country themselves, they will wax highly indignant if any of the survivors do a little slaying, even if they kill but a miserable slave, like this Somali dog.

Heave him overboard.

No. Ships carry the "far-eye," the magic instrument that makes the distant near, that brings things from miles away to within a few yards. Doubtless telescopes were on them already. Keep in a close group round the body, smuggle it under the palm-mats and make believe to have been trying to kindle a fire in an old kerosine-oil tin.... Signals of distress appeared and Moussa Isa disappeared. The great steamer approached, slowed down, and came to a standstill beside the boat of the starving castaways. From her cliff-like side the passengers, crowding the rails of her many decks, looked down with interest upon a prehistoric craft in which lay a number of poor emaciated blacks and Arabs, clad for the most part in scanty cotton rags. These poor creatures feebly extended skinny hands and feebly raised quavering voices, as they begged for water and a little rice, only water and a little rice in the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate. Their tins, lotahs and goat-skins were filled, bags of rice, bread and flour were 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 sweetly picturesque--poor dears"; the Captain murmured, "Damnedest scoundrels unhung--but can't leave 'em to starve"; the "poor dears" smiled largely and ate wolfishly; Moussa Isa bled, and the great steamer resumed her way.

"Pat" Brighte (she was Cleopatra Diamond Brighte who married Colonel Dearman of the Gungapur Volunteer Bines) found she had got a splendid snap-shot when her films were developed at Gungapur. A little later she got another when the look-out saw, and a boat picked up, a man who was lying 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 a bunder-boat which had turned turtle and sunk. He understood nothing but Hindustani.... Miss Brighte pitied the poor wretch but thought he looked rather horrid....

[44] Native boatswain.

The hearts of the castaways were filled with contentment as their stomachs were filled with food, and so busily did they devote themselves to eating, drinking, and sleeping that they forgot all about Moussa Isa beneath 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 (the ostensible and upper strata thereof, consisting of hides and salt, with a hint of ostrich-feathers, coffee, frankincense and myrrh) had favoured his chance of recovery, for, thanks to a friendly bundle, his head was pressed forward to his chest and the lips of the gaping wound in his throat were shut.

Moussa Isa was tougher than an Indian chicken.

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

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

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

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. Neither blows nor curses were of any particular account to Moussa, but this man Sulemani, a nondescript creature of no particular race, and only a man in 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_, as though he had been a common black nigger. And, of course, it was intentional, for even this eater of dogs and swine and lizards knew the great noble, civilized and cultured Somal, Galla, Afar and Abyssinian people from niggers. Even an English hide-and-head-buying tripper and _soi-disant_ big-game hunter knew a Zulu from a Hottentot, a Masai from a Wazarambo, and a Somali from a Nigger!

The only question was as to _how_ the scoundrel should be killed, for he 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 his throat like a young leopard on a dibatag, kudu or impala buck.

As Moussa sat behind him at the tiller, he would regard the villain's neck 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--or even a scrap of iron or of really hard pointed wood, honour could be satisfied and a stain removed from the scutcheon of Moussa Isa of the Somal race, insulted.

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

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

Toward the sailor, Moussa felt no resentment for the assault that had laid him bleeding in the gutter. Had he called him "_Hubshi_" it would have been a different matter--perhaps very different for the sailor. Moussa Isa regarded curses, cruelties, blows, wounds, attempts at murder, as mere natural manifestations of the attitude of their originators, and part of the inevitable scheme of things. Insults to his personal and racial Pride were in another category altogether.

Yes--the bottle must have been thus usefully broken by the hand of the Supreme Deity himself, prompted by Moussa's own particular and private _kismet_, to provide Moussa with the means of doing his duty by himself and 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 a Woolly One--a black beast of the jungle!

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

He bided his time....

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

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

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

And suddenly Moussa Isa was dimly conscious of his enemy, of him who had insulted the great Somal race and Moussa Isa. On the broad edge of the big barge Sulemani stood, before, and a foot below him, in the darkness, yelling directions, threats, promises and encouragement to his gang. If only 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 upon Sulemani's neck, illuminating it below and behind his ear. Mrs. "Pat" Dearman, homeward bound, had just entered her cabin and switched on the electric light. (When last she passed Aden she had been Miss Cleopatra Diamond Brighte, bound for Gungapur and the bungalow of her brother.)

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

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