rve.

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 ragg