And, as the sun set, Moussa Isa earned a sharp rebuke for inattentive slacking, as he stood sighing his soul to where it sank in the West over Aden and Somaliland....  Wait till his chance of escape arrived; he would journey straight for the sunset, day after day, until he reached a sea-shore.  There he would steal a canoe and paddle and paddle straight for the sunset, day after day, until he reached a sea-shore again.  That would be Africa or Arabia, and Moussa Isa would be where a Somal is known from a Hubshi....  Should he make a bolt for it now?  No, too weak, and not fair to this kind Sahib who had healed him and sympathized with him in the matter of the ignorance and impudence of those who misnamed a son of the Somals....  In due course, the Committee of Visitors met at the Reformatory one morning, and found on the agenda paper inter alia the case of Moussa Isa, a murderer from Aden, his attempt at murder and suicide, and his prayer to be sent to Aden Jail.

On the Committee were the Director of Public Instruction, the Collector, the Executive Engineer, the Superintendent of Duri Jail, the Educational Inspector, the Cantonment Magistrate, Major Jackson of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and a number of Indian gentlemen.  To the Chairman’s inquiries Moussa Isa made the usual replies.  He had been mortally affronted and had endeavoured to avenge the insult.  He had tried to do his duty to himself—­and to his enemy.  He had been put to base women’s-work as a punishment for defending his honour and he had tried to take his life in despair.  Was there no justice in British lands?  What would the Sahib himself do if his honour were assailed?  If one rose up and insulted him and his race?  Called him baboon, born of baboons, for example?  Or had the Sahib no honour?  Why should he have been transported when he was not sentenced to transportation?  What had he done but defend his honour and avenge insults?  Unless he were now tried for murder and suicide, and sentenced to hard labour in Aden Jail, he would go on murdering until they did send him there.  If they said, “Well, you shan’t go there, whatever you do,” he would kill himself.  If he could get no sort of weapon he would starve himself (he did not in his ignorance quote the gentle and joyous Pankhurst family) or hold his breath.  So they had better send him, and that was all he had got to say about it.

“Send him for trial before the City Magistrate and recommend that he go to Aden Jail at once, before he hurts somebody else,” said the native members of the Committee.  “Why should we be troubled with the off-scourings of Aden?”

“Certainly not,” opined the Collector of Duri.  A pretty state of affairs if every criminal were to be allowed to select his own place of punishment, and to terrorize any penitentiary that had the misfortune to lack favour in his sight.  Let the boy be well flogged for the assault and attempted suicide, and then let him rejoin the ordinary gangs and classes.  It was the Superintendent’s duty to watch his charges and keep discipline in what was, after all, a school.