THE BABU 



sin of opposing Divine Will may be 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 arisen 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 



249 



