rotection from your
enemies. 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 by
the 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 in
the Gulf, or of Arab _safari_ ruffians and "black-ivory" men? Freedom to
be left to the hyaena when you broke down on the march? Freedom to die
of starvation when you fell sick and could not carry coal? Thanks.

If the mad English provided beautiful refuges, and made the commission
of certain crimes the requisite qualification for admission, let wise
men qualify.

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

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

That would be subtilty,--at once washing out the insult in the
Brahmin's blood and getting sent whither his heart turned so constantly
and fondly. They had treated him as a juvenile offender because he was
so small and young, and because the killing of the fat Mussulman was his
first offence, as they supposed. Surely they would recognize that he was
a man when he had killed his second enemy--especially if he told them
about Sulemani. What in the name of Allah did they want, to constitute a
real sound criminal, fit for Aden Jail, if three murders were not
enough? Well, he would go on killing until they did have enough, and
were obliged to send him to Aden Jail. There he would behave beautifully
and kill nobody until they wanted to turn him out to starve. Then, since
murder was the requisite qualification, he would murder to admiration.
He knew they could not send him over the way to the