“Because I see no end to be answered in killing him; it is surely sufficient that the one already dead should die. Killing his murderer will not raise him to life again, neither will it benefit his family: besides, it is depriving the chief of one man more.”
Zoonah interposed, “The English say that the murderer must be made to feel what the dead man felt—that was, to die.”
“But what help,” asked Lulu, who, though the least educated, was the shrewdest of the three in argument,—“what help is that to the living? Why do they not eat him up (a Kafir phrase for ruining any one by confiscation of his property), and let him live?”
Zoonah spoke, in a low, deep voice, “Where is the dead?”
“No more!” replied Doda; “he has ceased to be.”
“Then,” asked Lulu, “how will he know his murderer has been killed or eaten up?—he is not there to see him.”
“What need,” asked Zoonah, “for him to know he is no more?”
“It would compensate his heart for the loss of his body,” replied Lulu.
“But,” said Doda, “we have nothing more to do with his heart—his body is gone—he is no longer a man.”
There was a long pause.