To Moussa Isa, the dark and dingy cell with its bare stone walls, mud floor, grated aperture and iron door was a fine safe house; its iron bed-frame with cotton-rug-covered laths and stony pillow, a piece of wanton luxury; its shelf, stool and utensils, prideful wealth.  If only the place were in Africa or Aden!  Well, Aden Jail would do, and if the Brahmin’s death led to his being sent there as a serious and respectable murderer, it would be a real case of two enemies on one spear—­an insult avenged and a most desired re-patriation achieved.

That would be subtilty,—­at once washing out the insult in the Brahmin’s blood and getting sent whither his heart turned so constantly and fondly.  They had treated him as a juvenile offender because he was so small and young, and because the killing of the fat Mussulman was his first offence, as they supposed.  Surely they would recognize that he was a man when he had killed his second enemy—­especially if he told them about Sulemani.  What in the name of Allah did they want, to constitute a real sound criminal, fit for Aden Jail, if three murders were not enough?  Well, he would go on killing until they did have enough, and were obliged to send him to Aden Jail.  There he would behave beautifully and kill nobody until they wanted to turn him out to starve.  Then, since murder was the requisite qualification, he would murder to admiration.  He knew they could not send him over the way to the Duri Jail, since he belonged to Aden, had been convicted there, and only sent to the Duri Reformatory because Aden boasted no such institution....

Yes.  The Brahmin’s corpse should be the stepping-stone to higher things and the place where people knew a Somali from a Negro.

If only he were in the carpentry department with Master Brahmin, where there were axes, hammers, chisels, knives, saws, and various pointed instruments.  Fancy teaching the young gentleman manners and ethnology with an axe!  However, after one or two more journeys between the tap and the flower-bed, he would pass within striking-distance of the dog as he worked his slow way along the tract of earth he was supposed to be digging up with the silly short-handled pick.

Should he try and seize the pick and give him one on the temple with it?  No, the Brahmin would scream and struggle and the overseer would be on Moussa Isa in a single bound.  He must strike a sudden blow in the act of passing.

A few more journeys to the water-tap....

Now! “Hubshi,” eh?

Halting beside the crouching Brahmin youth, Moussa Isa swung up the heavy watering-can by the spout and aimed a blow with all his strength at the side of his enemy’s head.  He designed to bring the sharp strong rim of the base behind the ear with the first blow, on the temple with the second, and just anywhere thereafter, if time permitted of a thereafter.

But the aggravating creature tossed his head as Moussa, with a grunt of energy, brought the vessel down, and the rim merely struck the top of the shaven skull.  Another—­harder.  Another—­with frenzied strength and the force of long-suppressed rage and sense of wrong.