In the meantime my men were being questioned as to what had happened in the Kikuyu country during the time that I had been there, and the following day an askari came to my tent and presented me with a lengthy document, written on blue paper, which proved to be a summons to appear that day before the officers in charge of the fort. The summons read something after the following style: “I, Francis George Hall, charge you, John Boyes, that during your residence in the Kenia district you waged war, set shauris, personated Government, went on six punitive expeditions, and committed dacoity.” I must confess that I read over this formidable list of charges with some amusement, though I was well aware that any one of them, if proved, meant capital punishment. There was one item on the list that I could not make out, and I took the first opportunity of inquiring the meaning of the word “dacoity,” which was a term I had never heard used in the country before. I remembered reading a book called “The Last of the Dacoits,” and it struck me that either the title of the book was wrong, or that the official, in his anxiety to fulfil his instructions to pile up as heavy a list of crimes against me as possible, had allowed his imagination to run away with him. It was explained to me that “Dacoit” was an Indian term, meaning a native outlaw.
At the time appointed I presented myself at the “court-house,” which was a primitively-constructed mud-hut, furnished with two chairs and a table, and as the two former were occupied by Mr. Hall and Captain Longfield, there was nothing left for me but to make myself as comfortable as possible on the corner of the table, which I did, much to the scandal of those two important officials. The charge having been read over to me, I was cautioned in the same manner that an English bobby cautions a prisoner, that anything I might say, &c., and then I was asked what I had to say. I told them that I certainly had nothing to say to them one way or the other, and would reserve my defence, and the proceedings—which were of a purely formal character—were then over and I returned to my tent.
The next four days were spent in collecting evidence against me, and as nobody could be persuaded to go to my headquarters to collect evidence against me on the spot, Captain Longfield himself finally went, taking with him the whole of his troops, while during his absence Mr. Hall gathered all the information he could from the chiefs and other natives at Mberri.