of balance in
the spirit, so that in resisting one sort a man acquires virtue to
commit the other without harm--" And so on for hours.

At twelve-thirty the safari drifted in. Consider that fact and what it
meant. The plain duty of the headman was, of course, to have seen that
the men followed us in the day before. But allowing, for the sake of
argument, that this was impossible, and that the men had been forced by
the exhaustion of some of their number to stop and camp, if they had
arisen betimes they should have completed the journey in two hours at
most. That should have brought them in by half-past seven or eight
o'clock. But a noon arrival condemned them without the necessity of
argument. They had camped early, had risen very, very late, and had
dawdled on the road.

We ourselves gave the two responsible headmen twenty lashes apiece; then
turned over to them the job of thrashing the rest. Ten per man was the
allotment. They expected the punishment; took it gracefully. Some even
thanked us when it was over! The babu disappeared in his station.

About an hour later he approached us, very deprecating, and handed us a
telegram. It was from the district commissioner at Voi ordering us to
report for flogging "porters on the Tsavo Station platform."

"I am truly sorry, I am truly sorry," the babu was murmuring at our
elbows.

"What does this mean?" we demanded of him.

He produced a thick book.

"It is in here--the law," he explained. "You must not flog men on the
station platform. It was my duty to report."

"How did we know that? Why didn't you tell us?"

"If you had gone there"--he pointed ten feet away to a spot exactly like
all other spots--"it would have been off the platform. Then I had
nothing to say."

We tried to become angry.

"But why in blazes couldn't you have told us of that quietly and
decently? We'd have moved."

"It is the law" He tapped his thick book.

"But we cannot be supposed to know by heart every law in that book. Why
didn't you warn us before reporting?" we insisted.

"I am truly sorry," he repeated. "I hope and trust it will not prove
serious. But it is in the book."

We continued in the same purposeless fashion for a moment or so longer.
Then the babu ended the discussion thus,--

"It was my duty. I am truly sorry. Suppose I had not reported and should
die to-day, and should go to heaven, and God should ask me, 'Have you
done your duty to-day?' what should I say to Him?"