The answer was bold. The trembling had ceased. Now that he faced nemesis the strength of native fatalism came to his rescue, bolstering up the pride that every uncontaminated Nyamwezi owns. He was not more than seventeen years old, but he stood there at last like a veteran at bay.
"Put him down and beat him!" ordered the lieutenant.
"Impudent answers to this court shall always be soundly punished! Call the next case while that one is being taught good manners."
A woman was stood in front of the line, fidgety with fear, in doubt whether to lay her suckling baby on the bench before she faced military justice. She laid it on the floor at her feet, hesitated, and then picked it up again and wrapped it in a corner of the red blanket that constituted her only dress.
"Take that brat away from her!" the lieutenant ordered. "She must pay attention to me. With that in her arms she will only think of mothering!"
An askari seized the baby by the arm and leg and gave it with a laugh to another woman to hold, its mother whimpering with fright until she saw it safely nestled.
"Quick, now! What about this one?"
It seemed there was no charge against her. The two sergeants searched through the piles of blue sheets in vain.
"Then what the devil is she here for? What do you want, you?"
The trembling woman pointed to her baby, but was dumb. It needed courage to answer that lieutenant, and the crack—crack—crack of a thick kiboko descending at measured intervals on the naked back of the boy who had answered boldly was no help toward reassurance.