cried, "they've killed Cecil Brown."

What had happened was this. In his conflict with his own ill-humour,
Cochrane had strolled over this nearest crest, and had found a group of
camels in the hollow beyond, with a little knot of angry, loud-voiced
men beside them. Brown was the centre of the group, pale, heavy-eyed,
with his upturned, spiky moustache and listless manner. They had
searched his pockets before, but now they were determined to tear off
all his clothes in the hope of finding something which he had secreted.
A hideous negro with silver bangles in his ears, grinned and jabbered in
the young diplomatist's impassive face. There seemed to the Colonel to
be something heroic and almost inhuman in that white calm, and those
abstracted eyes. His coat was already open, and the Negro's great black
paw flew up to his neck and tore his shirt down to the waist. And at
the sound of that r-r-rip, and at the abhorrent touch of those coarse
fingers, this man about town, this finished product of the nineteenth
century, dropped his life-traditions and became a savage facing a
savage. His face flushed, his lips curled back, he chattered his teeth
like an ape, and his eyes--those indolent eyes which had always twinkled
so placidly--were gorged and frantic. He threw himself upon the negro,
and struck him again and again, feebly but viciously, in his broad,
black face. He hit like a girl, round arm, with an open palm. The man
winced away for an instant, appalled by this sudden blaze of passion.
Then with an impatient, snarling cry, he slid a knife from his long
loose sleeve and struck upwards under the whirling arm. Brown sat down
at the blow and began to cough--to cough as a man coughs who has choked
at dinner, furiously, ceaselessly, spasm after spasm. Then the angry
red cheeks turned to a mottled pallor, there were liquid sounds in his
throat, and, clapping his hand to his mouth, he rolled over on to his
side. The negro, with a brutal grunt of contempt, slid his knife up his