Discharged from the hospital, Moussa became his own master, a gentleman at large, and, for a time, prospered in the coal-trade.

He steered a coal-lighter that journeyed between the shore and the ships.

One day he received a blow, a curse, and an insult, from the maccudam or foreman of the gang that worked in the boat which he steered.  Neither blows nor curses were of any particular account to Moussa, but this man Sulemani, a nondescript creature of no particular race, and only a man in the sense that he was not a woman nor a quadruped, had called him “Hubshi” Woolly One.  Had called Moussa Isa of the Somal a Hubshi, as though he had been a common black nigger.  And, of course, it was intentional, for even this eater of dogs and swine and lizards knew the great noble, civilized and cultured Somal, Galla, Afar and Abyssinian people from niggers.  Even an English hide-and-head-buying tripper and soi-disant big-game hunter knew a Zulu from a Hottentot, a Masai from a Wazarambo, and a Somali from a Nigger!

The only question was as to how the scoundrel should be killed, for he was large and strong, and never far from a shovel, crow-bar, boat-hook or some weapon.  Not much hope of being able to fasten on his throat like a young leopard on a dibatag, kudu or impala buck.

As Moussa sat behind him at the tiller, he would regard the villain’s neck with interest, his fat neck, just below and behind the big ear.

If he only had a knife—­such as the beauty that once cut his throat—­or even a scrap of iron or of really hard pointed wood, honour could be satisfied and a stain removed from the scutcheon of Moussa Isa of the Somal race, insulted.

One lucky night he got his next scar, the fine one that ornamented his cheek-bone, and a really serviceable weapon of offence against the offender Sulemani.

On this auspicious night, a festive English sailor flung a bottle at him, in merry sport, as he passed beneath the verandah of the temple of Venus and Bacchus in which the sailor sprawled.  It struck him in the face, broke against his cheek-bone, and provided him with a new scar and a serviceable weapon, a dagger, convenient to handle and deadly to slay.  The bottle-neck was a perfect hilt and the long tapering needle-pointed spire of glass projecting from it was a perfect blade—­rightly used, of course.  Only a fool would attempt a heart-stab with such a dagger, as it would shatter on the ribs, leaving the fool to pay for his folly.  But the neck-stab—­for the big blood-vessels—­oho!  And Moussa Isa licked his chops just as he had seen the black-maned lion do in his own fatherland; just as did the lion from whom the fair Sheikh had saved him.

Toward the sailor, Moussa felt no resentment for the assault that had laid him bleeding in the gutter.  Had he called him “Hubshi” it would have been a different matter—­perhaps very different for the sailor.  Moussa Isa regarded curses, cruelties, blows, wounds, attempts at murder, as mere natural manifestations of the attitude of their originators, and part of the inevitable scheme of things.  Insults to his personal and racial Pride were in another category altogether.