Presently a jemadar came rushing up to me to say
that the men were all fighting and murdering
each other with sticks and stones. I ran back
with him at once and succeeded in restoring order,
but found seven badly injured men lying stretched
out on the ground. These I had carried up to
my own boma on charpoys (native beds); and
Brock being away, I had to play the doctor myself
as best I could, stitching one and bandaging
another and generally doing what was possible.
There was one man, however, who groaned
loudly and held a cloth over his face as if he
were dying. On lifting this covering, I found
him to be a certain mason called Karim Bux,
who was well known to me as a prime
mischief-maker among the men. I examined him carefully,
but as I could discover nothing amiss, I concluded
that he must have received some internal injury,
and accordingly told him that I would send him
to the hospital at Voi (about thirty miles down
the line) to be attended to properly. He was
then carried back to his camp, groaning grievously
all the time.
Scarcely had he been removed, when the head
jemadar came and informed me that the man
was not hurt at all, and that as a matter of fact
he was the sole cause of the disturbance.
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