SHEIKH ED DIN’S EUNUCH IN HIS MASTER’S MARRIAGE-JIBBEH.
I left him firmly impressed with the idea, and this impression was only intensified months later when a number of his chief men were ordered back to Omdurman and thrown into prison with me, that had Nejoumi had any one in whom he could repose his confidence and absolute trust in such a delicate matter, he would have sent in his submission to the Government, and laying hands upon the Emirs sent by the Khaleefa to spy upon him—for he was then under suspicion—would have led his army as “friendlies” to Wadi Halfa, and have asked assistance to enable him to turn the tables on the Khaleefa. What further leads me to make such a bold assertion or statement is that the Emirs, or chief men, referred to already as having |66| been thrown into prison with me at Omdurman, gave me, as their fellow-captive, first their sympathy, and then their complete confidence. I learned from them the fate of those of Saleh’s caravan whom I had left alive at Dongola. They had, they told me, been executed in batches of varying numbers at intervals of some days, Elias my clerk being the last to be executed, and he not being executed until about two months after my departure from Dongola. Nejoumi, for reasons which will be at once seen, kept him alive to the last, and then doubtless only gave the order for his execution when, despairing of my being sent back to him, he gave way to the importunities of the other Emirs anxious to see the last of Saleh’s people executed.
From what they confided to me, there could not be the slightest doubt that a conviction of the imposture of the Mahdi’s successor was growing and spreading amongst the Mahdists; but the system of espionage instituted by the Khaleefa nipped in the bud any outward show of it. There can be also no doubt that these confidants of Nejoumi had, in some way, compromised themselves when speaking in the presence of some of the Khaleefa’s agents, and that Nejoumi himself had only not been ordered back with them because of his popularity and the Khaleefa’s fear and jealousy of him. There was no one whom Nejoumi, or, for the matter of that, any one—not even excepting the Khaleefa himself, might implicitly trust in the Soudan. The man to whom you gave your innermost confidences might be friend or foe, and as all changed face as rapidly and constantly as |67| circumstances dictated, it would be safe to say that no one in the Soudan for a single moment trusted any one else.
Whatever Nejoumi’s convictions may have been in the earlier days of the Mahdist movement, it is certain that they underwent a great change. Indeed, his advance against the Egyptian Army at Toski, when he was killed, was, as I was told by some of his people imprisoned with me after their return, only undertaken when he was goaded to it by the reproaches of the Khaleefa, accusing him of cowardice and treachery, accompanied with threats of recalling him to Omdurman—and Nejoumi knew well what this implied.
In the last chapter I remarked that I would later offer some surmises as to the reason why my guide Amin was the first to be executed at Dongola, and it would be well to insert them here, while speaking of my fellow-prisoners from Nejoumi’s army. Though they could not be positive on the point, they were certain that Amin’s two or three passages-at-arms with the guide Hassan had been related to the assembled Emirs at Dongola immediately after our arrival, and Amin was in consequence ordered to be at once executed. I expressed my suspicions as to the actual death of Hassan at El Kab, and in face of what I was told, I cannot help but believe that his falling from the camel was an arranged affair, and that he came with the caravan to Dongola, and gave evidence against Amin. Following up this suspicion or supposition, it is very probable that he originated the “cock-and-bull” story related to the military authorities, |68| detailing the supposed incidents of the capture of Saleh’s caravan and myself. It will not have been forgotten that the published official and semi-official records report my capture at two different places a hundred and fifty miles apart, or, in other words, a minimum of five days’ journey, and at different dates,—in one instance announcing my arrival at Omdurman as a captive one month before the caravan which I was supposed to have betrayed—or been the cause of the capture of through “imprudence”—had even started from Wadi Halfa.
In the early morning of April 28, I and Hasseena were taken outside the town to where the guards and camels were awaiting us, and setting off on our journey, travelled through Hannak, Debbeh, Abou Gussi, and Ambukol. The incidents connected with our appearance at these places are not of sufficient interest to warrant my detaining my readers with them. From Ambukol we struck into the desert, making for the Nile at Gebel Roiyan, enduring the inevitable discomforts and privations of such a journey. On arrival at the village near Gebel Roiyan, we took possession of what we believed to be a deserted house, and, after taking a little food, lay down to sleep. During the night a wretched old woman crept into my room, and commenced that peculiar wailing known to those who have been in the East. She was, she said, “El umm Khashm-el-Mus” (the mother of Khashm-el-Mus—but the expression may be taken to imply merely that she was one of Khashm-el-Mus’s family or relatives), whom Gordon had sent with gunboats to Metemmeh to |69| accompany Sir Charles Wilson on his voyage to Khartoum. Her sons, the whole of her family (or tribe), had been killed by the Khaleefa’s order, and, as far as she knew, she was the only one left. Taking no notice of my guards, who had come in, attracted by the wailing and talking, she cursed the Mahdi, and every thing and every one connected with him. The wailings of the poor creature, her pinched, sunken cheeks, her glistening eyes, her skinny, hooked fingers, her vehement curses on the Mahdi and Khaleefa, and the faint glow from the charcoal embers which only served to outline the form of the old woman as some horrid spectre as she stood up and prophesied my death, completely unnerved me. If there was one night in my life upon which I required a few hours’ rest it was on this—the last, as I knew, before my entering Omdurman. But no sleep came to my eyes that night. Soon after the woman left, a sound of dull thuds, a shriek, a moan, and then silence told its own tale. She had been battered to death with curses on the Mahdi on her lips.
The night was one long, horrible, wakening nightmare, but all was real and not a fantasy of the brain. How I longed for the dawn! and how impatiently I waited for it! For the first time I had fears for my reason. The sensation I felt was as if a cord had been slipped round my brain, and was gradually but surely tightening. But enough of this; it is not necessary to interlard my experiences with painful mental sensations, real as they were.
It was with some little difficulty that I shuffled my |70| way to the camels next morning, to mount and get away on our last stage of the journey to Omdurman. We reached the town at noon, on Thursday, May 5, and passed in almost unnoticed until we reached the market-place, when the news having spread like wildfire, we were soon surrounded by thousands of people, and it was with the greatest difficulty we fought our way to the open praying-ground adjoining the burial-place of the Mahdi. (The tomb had not then been built.) Here I was placed in the shade of the rukooba. (The rukooba is a light structure of poles supporting a roof of matting and palm branches, in the shade of which the people rest during the heat of the day.) Two of my guards went off to deliver Wad Nejoumi’s despatches to the Khaleefa, and also to announce my arrival.
Shortly afterwards, Nur Angara, Slatin, Mohammad Taher, and the chief Kadi, with others, came to question me. Slatin addressed a few words to me in English, but not understanding him, I asked him to speak in German, upon which he said in an undertone, “Be polite; tell them you have come to join the Mahdieh in order to embrace the Mahdi’s religion; do not address me.” Nur Angara, who put the majority of the questions, asked, “Why have you come to Omdurman?” I hesitated a little before replying, but did not hesitate long enough to allow my European blood to cool sufficiently to reply “politely” to the imperious black confronting me. I told him, “Because I could not help myself; when I left Wadi Halfa it was to go and trade and not fight, |71| but your people have taken me prisoner, and sent me here; why do you ask me that question?” Slatin at this moved behind the other Emirs, and I believe made some attempt to make me understand that I should speak differently to them. My helplessness was galling to me; there was not a man there whom, pulled down as I was, I could not with sheer strength have crushed the life out of.
I was questioned about the number of troops at Wadi Halfa and Cairo, the fortifications, etc., but neither places would have recognized the fortresses I invented for the occasion, and the numbers of troops with which I invested them. When told that news had been received from Wad Nejoumi that the British troops were leaving, I admitted the truth of this, but said that they could all be brought back to Wadi Halfa in four days. All the questions, or nearly all, were in connection with the army and the movement of the troops, and this will be understood when it is remembered that, by some, I was believed to be “Pasha,” and all Pashas in the Soudan were military leaders.