"Aye, let us fight it out, Sahib," said Mahomed, reading my thoughts, "things have gone too far; we _must_ fight." "Very well," I reluctantly assented, "but your blood be on your own head." As I expected the Bantu simply smothered the Somal. Although we barred sticks, knives, or stone-throwing (don't smile, Africans use those things in preference to bare fists) there were many foul blows given and received--more often received by Mahomed--until at last the weaker man was in dire straits. Again and again he staggered to his feet only to hit the ground immediately afterwards. "Stop. Give in, Mahomed. He's a better man physically, and he'll kill you!" "I shall never give in," replied Mahomed. "He is a slave and I am his master!" And then the spirit in him began to triumph over his adversary, who, though quite unhurt, now showed signs of fear. Once he fell to the ground, and seizing Mahomed's leg bit it to the bone. For this act he was rewarded by a kick on the face that gave him the wished-for excuse to "play possum." The battered Mahomed now began to kick his adversary feebly on the body with bare feet, and the latter cried out to us to save him. "Admit you are beaten!" said Mahomed. "I am beaten!" said the Bantu. Afterwards I married. The change of life from the single to the blessed state affects not only the European dweller in Africa, but also his servant. Where a wipe here and a flick there with a duster, in the old days, constituted tidying up the house, everything now must be cleaned and polished with scrupulous care. There are also ever so many things that were never done in the old times more than twice a year--and that a record year--that now call for attention every day. A bachelor's servants rarely remain long with him after he marries. But Mahomed was one of the exceptions. When the first baby came he was as delighted as I, and when others followed he seemed to share the heavy cares of family life equally with me. I can pay him the greatest compliment a white man can pay the native. Wherever the children might be I felt that if Mahomed were there, and alive, they were safe. His own marriage to an older woman was unhappy, and one day, yielding to her importunities, he allowed her to go. She left him a young son. His mother had been rendered destitute as the outcome of a wild raid by the Mad Mullah, and Mahomed brought her, and a young brother, to Jubaland, where we lived. I had then an opportunity of learning that he was a good son. When war broke out in August, 1914, Mahomed and I, for the first few days, took little heed. We were too far removed from the European world to realise what was coming. But, soon afterwards, I left Mahomed to help bring up the children, whilst I went off to join the King's African Rifles.