His Excellency Stewart Pasha, with nine men, is dead. They have taken the others to Berber.
When you have a letter for Dongola I beg you to send it me, and I will find means of sending it on.
Your scribe has written a dispatch in cipher, half Arabic and half cipher, so badly, that they have been able to decipher it, and so they have found a key to your despatches, and have also deciphered your Excellency’s despatch to his Excellency Towfik Pasha. If there are letters from Europe for me at the post I beg you to send them me, because it is almost three years since I have had any news of my family. I entreat your Excellency to honour me with an answer.
Your devoted and obedient servant,
Slatin.
I and Seid Gjoma, Mudir of Fascher, are seeking occasion to enter Omdurman to remain with you. Pray, Excellency, do your best to give us permission, because we are always in fear of spies. I pray God that He may give you success in the siege.
P.S.—If your Excellency has perhaps understood that I have done anything contrary to the honour of an officer, and if that hinders you from writing to me, I pray you give me a chance of defending myself, and judge according to truth.
[APPENDIX T.]
From the Mudir of Sennaar.