he boy Moussa Isa the Somali, apparently
dead, for his eyes were closed and he gave no sign of pain as Ibrahim's
gang of pimps, panders, bullies and _budmashes_[18] kept him swinging to
and fro by blows of _lathis_[19] and by kicks, while Ibrahim and his
friends, at a short distance, strove to hit the moving body with stones.
I suppose the agony of hanging forward from the arms, and the blows of
staff and stone, had stunned the lad--who had offended Ibrahim, it
appeared, by preventing him from entering my brother's house--probably
to poison his water-_lotah_[20] and _gurrah_[21]--at the door of which
he, Moussa Isa, lay sick. My brother, Mir Jan, sprang from his camel
without waiting for the driver to make it kneel, and going up to
Ibrahim, he struck him with his closed, but empty, hand. Not with the
slap that stings and angers, he struck him, but with the thud that stuns
and injures, upon the mouth, removing certain of his teeth,--such being
his anger and his strength. Rising from the ground and plucking forth
his knife, Ibrahim sprang at my brother who, unarmed, straightway smote
him senseless, and that is talked of in Mekran Kot to this day.
Yea--senseless. Placing the thumb upon the knuckles of the clenched
fingers, he smote at the chin of Ibrahim, and laid him, as one dead,
upon the earth. Straight to the front from the shoulder and not
downwards nor swinging sideways he struck, and it was as though Ibrahim
had been shot. The Sahib being English will believe this, but many
Baluchis and Pathans do not. They cannot believe it, though to me
Subedar-Major Mir Daoud Khan Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan of the 99th Baluch
Light Infantry of the Army of the King Emperor of India, they pretend
that they do, when I tell of that great deed.... Then my brother loosed
Moussa Isa with his own hand, saying that even as he had served Ibrahim
Mahmud so would he serve any man who injured a hair of the head of his
body-servant. And Moussa Isa clave to my brother yet the more, and when
a great Sidi slave entered the room of my brother by night, doubtless
hired by Ibrahim Mahmud to slay him, Moussa Isa, grappling with him,
tore out his throat with his teeth, though stabbed many times by the
Sidi, ere my brother could light torch or wick to tell friend from foe.
Whether he were thief or hired murderer, none could say--least of all
the Sidi when Moussa Isa, at my brother's bidding, loosed his teeth from
the man's throat. But all men held that it was