"'That is easily done,' said the youth. 'Once I went with my section into battle; we were heavily outnumbered, and I was in the front rank. I noticed that of the men who were afraid and stayed a little behind many were killed by the spears that went over the heads of us who were doing the fighting. Thus I learned the lesson that man's life is not in his own keeping but in God's hands. When our time comes to die we cannot escape by running away or refusing to fight. So I know that God will call me at His own good time, and I leave it to Him, never worrying about my life. For this reason I am fearless.' "'As for being generous, I am not really so as everything I give away I believe belongs to God, even as I told you my life is His. Once when my brothers and I were rich two poor men came to our camp and asked for food. We refused, and drove them forth into the bush. Near us lived a poor man and his wife, and to this couple the poor men went for shelter and a bite of food. They had but a few goats, of which they killed one, and gave the strangers to eat and made them welcome. We laughed and said it was meet the poor should help the poor. Soon after that the cattle plague came and swept off all our stock; we were left beggars, without a bite to eat. The stock of the poor man who had killed his goat for the poor men, sent to his gate by God, escaped the plague and multiplied so that he became rich. Thus I learned that we but hold the world's riches on trust, and God to Whom they belong can take them away from us in a single night. The good things that come my way I share with my less fortunate brethren whilst I have the opportunity, lest it should pass from my hands for ever.' "And that is the end of the story," said Buralli. "But you said it was a naughty story, Buralli, and you have not explained why the young man was shameless." Buralli's eye twinkled. "That is the naughty part, Sahib." Like Mark Twain's "indelicate story," but for a different reason, as Buralli did tell me why the young man was shameless, this story must remain incomplete. CHAPTER XIII THE YIBIR His characteristics--Gulaid Abokr and his Yibir--The first Yibir and his talents--A "makran." Before the war I lived in Southern Somaliland, where the "Sab," or outcast tribes of Northern Somaliland, are seldom met with, and it so happened that the first representative of the hunter people--the Midgans--whom I came across was the old pot-woman of Zeila. And as for my first Yibir, it was here I met and nearly passed him by. It is customary for the Midgan, who live by hunting, to attach themselves to a Somal family for protection, for which they pay by acting as hewers of wood and drawers of water. The Yibirs are much more sophisticated, and prefer, if possible, to live by their wits instead of soiling their hands by honest toil. Somals will not mix, or inter-marry, with either tribe, and look upon them as of inferior caste to themselves.