I know that you have been invested with a veil and robes of honour, and you say that Mohammed Achmed is the Mahdi—and I know that there is among you a man of mature age who has spent his life, from his youth up, in Islâm—who would consent to the ruin of the country.
Considering that I cannot bear the sight of that renegade traitor, it is preferable that you should send us a respectable pious man, who may be depended on, to receive 10,000 guineas for the ransom of the Europeans who are to be found there, and we will send them by his hand; and if you say that Mohammed Achmed is the Mahdi, why does he remain in the White (Nile)?—he ought (if he is the Mahdi) to take the whole country.
[The copy above translated is extremely illegible—evidently written in haste—by an unaccustomed scribe; the handwriting is bad and in Turkish style.
We have surmised that General Gordon employed the writer as being trustworthy, for among the inhabitants of Kartoum it must have been possible to find one who could write better.
George Calamatiano is evidently the renegade whom the General refuses to admit to his presence.]
[APPENDIX A².]
Letter to General Gordon from Abderrahman en Najoomi and Abdallah en Noor.
In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate, blessing be on our lord Mahomed and peace.