And another dollar"--he held up the coin--"to
the man on whose land these dogs shall kill him. But to the man
on whose land Abu Hussein shall run into a hole such as is this
hole, I will give not dollars, but a most unmeasurable beating.
Is it understood?"
"Our Excellency," a man stepped forth, "on my land Abu Hussein
was found this morning. Is it not so, brothers?"
None denied. The Governor tossed him over four dollars without a
word.
"On my land they all went into their holes," cried another.
"Therefore I must be beaten."
"Not so. The land is mine, and mine are the beatings."
This second speaker thrust forward his shoulders already bared,
and the villagers shouted.
"Hullo! Two men anxious to be licked? There must be some swindle
about the land," said the Governor. Then in the local vernacular:
"What are your rights to the beating?"
As a river-reach changes beneath a slant of the sun, that which
had been a scattered mob changed to a court of most ancient
justice. The hounds tore and sobbed at Abu Hussein's hearthstone,
all unnoticed among the legs of the witnesses, and Gihon, also
accustomed to laws, purred approval.
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