T. MACMAHAN (alias Blount).
P. S. Kindly acknowledge receipt of this letter in care of Bedr el Gemály whose address you have at Cairo. Not hearing from you, we shall try to communicate this news in some other way. The present method has occurred to us, as you may find it useful to know the state of affairs without delay.
"Oh, Biddy, do you find it useful?" I asked.
She held out her hands to me. There was no one on the veranda just then and I kissed her.
"Mine!" I said. "What a gorgeous place Khartum would be, to be married in!"
Monny was very brave next day. She went to Omdurman with the rest of us. And it was the chance of a lifetime, because (through Anthony) Slatin Pasha himself took us to the place of his captivity: Slatin Pasha, slim, soldierly, young, vital and brilliant. It was scarcely possible to believe that this man, who looked no more than thirty-five, and radiated energy, could have passed eleven years in slavery terrible beyond description. He spoke of those experiences almost lightly, as if telling the story of some one else, and it was "all in the day's work" that he should have triumphed over his persecutors in a way more complete, more dramatic than any author of romance would dare invent for his hero.
He took us, from the river-steps in front of his own big, verandaed house, down the Blue Nile in a fast steam launch. It was a Nile as blue as turquoise; and after the low island of Tuli had been left behind it was strange to see the junction of the Blue and the White Niles, in a quarrelsome swirl of sharply divided colours. Landing on the shore at Omdurman, we met carts loaded with elephant-tusks, and wagons piled with hides. Giant men, like ebony statues, walked beside pacing camels white as milk. The vegetable market was a town of little booths: the grain markets had gathered riches of green and orange-gold. Farther on, in the brown shadows of the roughly roofed labyrinth of bazaars, were stores of sandalwood, and spices smelling like Araby the blest; open-fronted shops showing splendid leopard skins, crocodile heads bristling with knives, carved tusks of elephants, shields, armour said to have been captured from crusaders; Abyssinian spears, swords and strange headgear used by the Mahdi's and Khalifa's men. The bazaars of Cairo and even Assuan seemed tame and sophisticated compared to this wild market of the Sudan, where half the men, and all the bread-selling women who were old enough, had been the Khalifa's slaves.
With Slatin Pasha we went to the Khalifa's "palace" to gaze at the "saint's" carriage, the skeleton of Gordon's piano, and scores of ancient guns which had cut short the lives of Christian men. Slatin's house we saw, too, and the gate whence he had escaped: the Mahdi's shattered tomb, and the famous open-air Mosque.
Then we had a run up the Blue Nile, as far as "Gordon's Tree," and lunched on board the launch. In the afternoon, back at Khartum again, there was still time to group round the statue of Gordon on his camel, holding the short stick that was his only weapon, and gazing over the desert. The Set were allowed to walk through the Palace gardens, to behold the spot at the head of the grand staircase, where Gordon fell, and to have a glimpse, in the Sirdar's library, of the Khalifa's photograph, taken after death. This was a special favour, and as they knew nothing about the four invitations to the ball, they were satisfied with their day.