d joy at success and grief at
failure, have pursued a little white ball with a stick, mile after mile,
knocking it with infinite precautions, every now and then, into a little
hole, and taking it out again.

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

And, as the sun set, Moussa Isa earned a sharp rebuke for inattentive
slacking, as he stood sighing his soul to where it sank in the West over
Aden and Somaliland.... Wait till his chance of escape arrived; he would
journey straight for the sunset, day after day, until he reached a
sea-shore. There he would steal a canoe and paddle and paddle straight
for the sunset, day after day, until he reached a sea-shore again. That
would be Africa or Arabia, and Moussa Isa would be where a Somal is
known from a _Hubshi_.... Should he make a bolt for it now? No, too
weak, and not fair to this kind Sahib who had healed him and sympathized
with him in the matter of the ignorance and impudence of those who
misnamed a son of the Somals.... In due course, the Committee of
Visitors met at the Reformatory one morning, and found on the agenda
paper _inter alia_ the case of Moussa Isa, a murderer from Aden, his
attempt 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 Educational
Inspector, the Cantonment Magistrate, Major Jackson of the Royal Army
Medical Corps, and a number of Indian gentlemen. To the Chairman's
inquiries Moussa Isa made the usual replies. He had been mortally
affronted and had endeavoured to avenge the insult. He had tried to do
his duty to himself--and to his enemy. He had been put to base
women's-work as a punishment for defending his honour and he had tried
to 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 rose
up and insulted him and his race? Called him baboon, born of baboons,
for example? Or had the Sahib no honour? Why should he have been
transported when he was not sentenced to transportation? What had he
done but defend his honour