His father, sheik of the village, came also, listened
to the loud shoutings without breath, the strong music lacking
musicians, and said, justly enough: 'This thing is a devil. You must not
bring devils into my village. Lock it up.'
They waited until he had gone away and then began another tune. A second
time the sheik came, repeated the command, and added that if the singing
box was heard again, he would slay the buyer. But their curiosity and
joy defied even this, and for the third time (late at night) they
slipped in pin and record and let the djinn rave. So the sheik, with his
rifle, shot his son as he had promised, and the English judge before
whom he eventually came had all the trouble in the world to save that
earnest gray head from the gallows. Thus:
'Now, old man, you must say guilty or not guilty.'
'But I shot him. That is why I am here. I - - '
'Hush! It is a form of words which the law asks. (Sotte voce. Write
down that the old idiot doesn't understand.) Be still now.'
'But I shot him. What else could I have done? He bought a devil in a
box, and - - '
'Quiet! That comes later. Leave talking.'
'But I am sheik of the village. One must not bring devils into a
village. I said I would shoot him.'
'This matter is in the hands of the law. I judge.'
'What need? I shot him. Suppose that your son had brought a devil in a
box to your village - - '
They explained to him, at last, that under British rule fathers must
hand over devil-dealing children to be shot by the white men (the first
step, you see, on the downward path of State aid), and that he must go
to prison for several months for interfering with a government shoot.
We are a great race. There was a pious young judge in Nigeria once,
who kept a condemned prisoner waiting very many minutes while he
hunted through the Hausa dictionary, word by word, for,
'May - God - have - mercy - on - your - soul.'
And I heard another tale - about the Suez Canal this time - a hint of what
may happen some day at Panama. There was a tramp steamer, loaded with
high explosives, on her way to the East, and at the far end of the Canal
one of the sailors very naturally upset a lamp in the fo'c'sle. After a
heated interval the crew took to the desert alongside, while the captain
and the mate opened all cocks and sank her, not in the fairway but up
against a bank, just leaving room for a steamer to squeeze past.
