“Tie up the schelm!”
“Give him six dozen well-laid on!” “Six dozen without counting!” “Cheeky brute!” were some of the shouts that accompanied each kick and blow dealt or aimed at the prostrate Kafir, who altogether seemed to be having a pretty bad time of it.
“That’s a damned shame!” exclaimed a voice behind them.
All started and turned their heads, some astonished—all angry—some perhaps a little ashamed of themselves—towards the owner of the voice, a horseman who sat calmly in his saddle some twenty yards away—an expression of strong disgust upon his features.
“What have you got to say to it anyhow, I’d like to know?” cried the man who had just struck the native.
“What I said before—that it’s a damned shame,” replied Eustace Milne unhesitatingly.
“What’s a shame, Mister?” sneered another. “That one o’ your precious black kids is getting a hidin’ for his infernal cheek?”
“That it should take twenty men to give it him, and that, too, when he’s down.”
“I tell you what it is, friend,” said the first speaker furiously. “It may take rather less than twenty to give you one, and that, too, when you’re up!” which sally provoked a blatant guffaw from several of the hearers.
“I’m not much afraid of that,” answered Eustace tranquilly. “But now, seeing that British love of fair play has been about vindicated by a score of Englishmen kicking a prostrate Kafir, how would it be to let him get up and go?”