After despatching Hassib, Wad Farag divided his party, sending one to the district between Wadi el Kab and the Nile, and the second, commanded by himself, he led to the desert to intercept us. The Alighat Arab sent out as a scout, who did not return, must have either been captured by Farag, or what is more likely, as he was sent out by Hassan, was an emissary of Hassan’s to Wad Farag or any of the other dervishes to give them the news, as Hassan must have been aware of our position and the proximity of the dervishes. The tracks we had picked up on the road, when the embers of the caravan’s fires were found still hot, were the remains of the fires of Hassib’s men, who had kept within touch of us the whole time, only losing touch on the day following the disappearance of the Alighats.
On reaching the broken ground leading to El Kab, my guide Amin and the two others had been allowed to pass unchallenged intentionally, as the dervish plan was to form themselves into three parties, which were to rush us from three sides at the same moment. It was in direct disobedience of orders that the first shots were fired at us, but it was probably done by some one to gain the promised reward for sighting us, and it ended, as already related, in a general fusilade. The |61| camels loaded with filled water-skins were left behind purposely, but their being left was a happy thought at the moment of Farag’s men. When they retired, it was only to join the other section which was to have rushed us from the left; the section to rush us in the rear being a little further out in the desert than the plan shows.
Our leader Ismail I never saw or heard of again; he may have succeeded in escaping altogether, only to be killed when the virtual extermination of the tribe took place and Sheikh Saleh, standing on his sheepskin, fell fighting to the last.
This account of the capture of the caravan, and the explanations given, though not agreeing in essentials with the accounts given officially, may be accepted as being as nearly correct in every detail as it is possible for memory to give them, and the occasion was one of those in life where even twelve years’ sufferings are not sufficient to obliterate the incidents from the mind.
I feel some little confidence in offering to the world my version of the circumstances attending my departure from Wadi Halfa for Kordofan, the date upon which I really did leave Egypt—as unfortunate a date for me as it evidently has been to some of my biographers,—and the actual circumstances attending my capture, as I happened to be present on the various occasions spoken of, and I do not think it will be asking too much if I request that the same amount of credence be given to my own story as has been given to that of others referred to in my introduction, and in the extracts which head the present chapter. |62|
It now remains, before closing this chapter, to deal with Dufa'allah Hogal and his part in the affair. In my first letter from Omdurman, which letter was written for me by dictation of the Khaleefa, I am made to say that I blamed Hogal for his deceit, but at the same time thanked him for his deceit, as it had led me to grace. This was a clever invention of the Emir’s at Dongola, or the Khaleefa himself, to get Hogal into trouble with the Government, and draw away suspicion from Hassan and Gabou. This letter was received by one of my clerks at Assouan, who fortunately retained a copy before forwarding it on to Cairo; a translation of it will be given later.
Hogal is not to be blamed for keeping his own counsel after Gabou had given him his confidence. He had nothing to gain by telling the authorities the truth, and he had everything to lose if he did. The Khaleefa’s spies were everywhere in the Government and out of it, just as the Government spies were amongst the Mahdists, and there can be no doubt but that they were paid by both sides—and who is to blame them? Hogal’s family ties and relations were in the Soudan, and there was no use in his raising a question over a dead man. I may have something to say about guides and spies later on, but it will not be with the idea of calling any of them to justice. The only justice they knew of was that contained in “Possession is nine points of the law,” or “Might conquers right,” and it suited their natures admirably to play a double game, rendered so easy for them with a Khaleefa who, having made up his mind to |63| do a certain thing, ever kept that object in view, and worked for its accomplishment, whilst on the other hand was a Government which in their opinion did not seem to know its own mind from one day to another as to what should be done with the Soudan and its subjects resident there.
CHAPTER VI DONGOLA TO OMDURMAN
During the early part of the night of April 27, the Amin Beit-el-Mal told me to prepare for my journey to Omdurman, as Wad Nejoumi had sent for me. There was little preparation I could make, except to beg some sesame oil to rub over my face, shoulders, back, and feet. The woollen shirt and clothing I had been allowed had not been sufficient to protect me against the burning rays of the sun, and the skin was peeling away from my face, shoulders and back, while my feet were blistered and cut. My stockings had been worn through in a day’s tramping through the sand. Taken to Nejoumi’s enclosure, Nejoumi and I sat together talking for a considerable time. He told me that he had wished to keep me by him for the purposes of “akhbar” (information, or news), but that the other Emirs had insisted upon my being killed at once, or sent to the Khaleefa with the supposed “firman” appointing me “The Pasha of the Western Soudan,” to be dealt with by the Khaleefa at Omdurman. Nejoumi said he had written asking that I should be sent back to him. He put to me many |65| questions about the Government, the fortifications of Cairo and Alexandria, Assouan, Korosko and Wadi Halfa, and in particular he was anxious to know all about the British army and “Ingleterra.” The advance up the Nile for the relief of Gordon had evidently given him a very poor opinion of our means of transport, at least as regards rapidity of movement, for when I told him of the distance between Alexandria and England, and assured him that steamers could bring in a large army in a week’s time, he smiled and said, “I am not a child, to tell me a tale like that.” He may or may not have gone to his grave believing that I was romancing, when I described to him what an ocean-going steamer was like, and did my best to give him some idea of the proportions of a Nile Dahabieh compared with an ocean-going steamer and a man-of-war.
