Ross-Ellison_!

"Well, one day, my brother and I went forth to shoot sand-grouse,
tuloor,[15] chikor,[16] chinkara[17] and perchance ibex, leaving behind
this black body-servant Moussa Isa, the Somali boy, because he was
sick. And it was supposed that we should not return for a week at the
least. But on the third day we returned, my brother's eyes being
inflamed and sore and he fearing blindness if he remained out in the
desert glare. This is a common thing, as the Sahib knoweth, when dust
and sun combine against the eyes of those who have read over-many books
and written over-much with the steel pen upon white paper, and my
brother was somewhat prone to this trouble in the desert if he exhausted
himself with excessive _shikar_ and--other matters. And this angered him
greatly. Yet it was all ordained by Allah for the undoing of that
unclean dog Ibrahim Mahmud--for, returning and riding on his white camel
(a far-famed pacer of speed and endurance) under the great gateway of
the Jam's fort--high enough for a camel-rider to pass unstooping and
long enough for a _rêlwêy_-tunnel--he came upon Mahmud Ibrahim and his
friends and followers (for he had many such, who thought he might
succeed his father as Vizier) doing a thing that enraged my brother very
greatly. Swinging at the end of a cord tied to his hands, which were
bound behind his back, was the boy Moussa Isa the Somali, apparently
dead, for his eyes were closed and he gave no sign of pain as Ibrahim's
gang of pimps, panders, bullies and _budmashes_[18] kept him swinging to
and fro by blows of _lathis_[19] and by kicks, while Ibrahim and his
friends, at a short distance, strove to hit the moving body with stones.
I suppose the agony of hanging forward from the arms, and the blows of
staff and stone, had stunned the lad--who had offended Ibrahim, it
appeared, by preventing him from entering my brother's house--probably
to poison his water-_lotah_[20] and _gurrah_[21]--at the door of which