[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 ragged and dirty, wore a very beautiful knife, which (though it reposed in a gaudy sheath of yellow, green and blue beads, fringed with a dependent filigree, or lace work, of similar beads with tassels of cowrie-shells) hailed from Damascus and had a handle of ivory and gold, and an inlaid blade on which were inscribed verses from the Q’ran.

Moussa Isa knew the pattern of it well by the close of day.  The Leading Gentleman took that evening to sharpening the already sharp blade of the knife.  As he sharpened it on his sandal and the side of the boat, and tried its edge on his thumb, he regarded the thin body of Moussa Isa very critically.

His look blended contempt, anticipation, and anxiety.

He broke a long brooding silence with the remark:—­

“The little dog will be thinner still, to-morrow “—­a remark which evoked from the fair youth the reply:  “And so will you”.

Perhaps truth covered and excused a certain indelicacy and callousness in the statement of the Leading Gentleman, albeit the fair young man appeared annoyed at it.  His British blood and instincts became predominant when the killing and eating of a fellow-creature were on the tapis—­the said fellow-creature being on it at the same time.

A colleague from Dar-es-Salaam, who had an ear and a half, three teeth, six fingers, innumerable pockmarks and a German accent, said, “He will have little fat,” and there was bitterness in his tone.  As a business man he realized a bad investment of capital.  The food in which they had wallowed should have gone to the fattening of Moussa Isa.  Also a fear struck him.