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