m from me he may beat me until I die, but he cannot make me a
slave. Has he not slain my father, and has he not dishonoured me by
causing me to stand naked before him? Can he punish me more? He is a
strong man--you call him a chief; he has in his hand a whip; he says he
will use it. I am but a child, but he cannot make me a slave. See, I
go to him nearer, and turn my back to him. I will not cry, though he
tear my flesh;" and the indomitable young Arab walked up nearer to the
chief, looked at him in the eye for a second, then slowly turned his
bare back to him, and with bended head and folded arms waited for the
blow.

Ferodia, though a chief and a Mtuta warrior, was a true savage; he had
never heard of that rare quality which belongs to races civilised and
semi-civilised, and is called magnanimity, or a generous forbearance to
a conquered foe. He beheld the defenceless boy who was fully in his
power standing within reach of the lash he held in his hand,--that
delicate youth with the fair and faultless skin, on which an angry blow
had never descended, which a whip had never dishonoured,--and the savage
could not restrain his instincts of cruelty or the delight to torture
and rend which is the instinct of wild men as well as of wild animals.
So, when Tifum explained to him what Abdullah had said, and what he
meant by thus turning his back to him, Ferodia, as though it were an
everyday matter in which no principle was involved, lifted his whip, and
as he saw the tender flesh shrink and redden, and then bleed and gape,
it but kindled the desire to hurt; but a powerful antidote and
corrective,--even subjugator, you may say,--was the resolute passiveness
and determined silence of his victim; and without being aware himself of
what lessened the power of his blows, and weakened his anger, and
finally conquered the desire to torture, his arm was stayed, and still
the boy stood up, now confronting him, with the same steady gaze and
heroic mien, to ask the astonished savage with a curling lip:

"Well, have you made me a slave now? Am I more a slave than before?"

"Stand aside, fool, else I will do thee a greater harm; and thou, Tifum,
away with them, treat them as slaves; and when we are on the road, give
them loads to carry. Since they think it such a terrible thing to be
naked, let their nakedness be seen of men and women, and if they suffer
through it, so much the better. Slaves were made to suffer. Are my
words no