Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/356

Rh extending to a horde of murderers the advantages of civilized warfare, "and the clemency he felt called upon to extend to them will cost England the loss of many a gallant life yet".

There was not a man in the Black Battalions who had not, by the old Law of Moses, the laws of his country in which he was then fighting, the law of the Prophet, and the religious law, irrespective of the law handed down from the remotest ages, more right to take a life on that day than any judge in a civilized country has to sentence to death a man who has personally done him no wrong. Every man there was entitled to a life in retaliation for the murder of a father, the rape of a mother, wife, daughter, or sister, the mutilation of a brother or son, and his own bondage. To prevent, as the Sirdar did prevent, these soldiers from exercising their rights, was doing them an injustice, and running a risk as well, when it is remembered how they had slaved for this "Day of Retaliation." There may have been, doubtless were, many cases of the killing outright of wounded dervishes; this was no more murder than a judicial hanging; and looking at the matter from a humanitarian point of view, would it not have been better to send those Blacks over the field to put the wounded out of their misery, and thus kill two birds with one stone? For let it be remembered, that when a dervish sits and lies wounded, he is wounded to death, and only by force of will keeps himself alive until he dies happy at the moment when he sends his spear through the heart of his would-be saviour. I repeat, the Sirdar