Hasseena, doubtless, had for me the Soudan equivalent for what we understand as affection; she had saved my life when we were first captured; she had nursed me, as only a woman can nurse one, through my first attack of typhus fever, and had kept me from starvation during the famine. But while I could not forget all this, I could not forget also that she had become a source of great danger to me, and although my treatment of her in sending her away when I did, might to some appear harsh in the face of what she had done for me, it must not be forgotten that self-preservation is no less a law of nature in the Soudan than it is elsewhere. I supported Hasseena for nearly two years, when her child died. She then left Khartoum, where I was still a chained prisoner at large, and went utterly to the bad. I heard of her from time to time, and, on my release in September last, hearing that she was at Berber, I delayed there until I had hunted her out of the den of vice in which she was living, and provided for her elsewhere, only to receive a telegram a few weeks later to say that, |194| hankering for the life which she had led for a few years back, she had run off to return to it.
It was this action of mine, which probably gave rise to the legend that I had brought her to Cairo with me, where my wife arrived, “only to be confronted with a black wife after all her years of mental anxiety and sufferings.” Why facts should be so persistently misconstrued, I cannot understand. In making that last—and I do not say final—effort, to do something for the woman to whom, at one time, I owed so much, I feel I have nothing to be ashamed of. Those who think differently must remember that it takes one some little time to fall again into European ideas and thoughts after twelve years of chains and slavery amongst the people whom I was compelled to associate with; and no one in the Soudan was more out of the world than I was.
CHAPTER XVI HOPE AND DESPAIR
While still a prisoner in the Saier, Mankarious Effendi, with Mohammad Fargoun and Selim Aly, engaged a man of the Ababdeh, Mohammad Ajjab, to make his way to Omdurman with a threefold object: he was to inquire if I was still alive; if so, to pay me a hundred dollars, and then to try and make arrangements for my escape. On arrival in Omdurman, Ajjab met two of his own people—Mohammad and Karrar Beshir—who recommended him, when he inquired about me, never to mention my name if he wished to keep his head on his shoulders. They could only tell him that I was still in prison, chained, and under sentence of death. Similar information and the same recommendation were given to him by people in the Muslimanieh quarter; but a Greek whom Ajjab knew only by his Mahdieh name of Abdallah, said that he would arrange for a meeting between him and my servant. Through Hasseena, Ajjab sent me word of the object of his coming to Omdurman. As the Greek offered to become my trustee, Ajjab handed him the hundred dollars, taking from him a receipt, and sending |196| the receipt to me concealed in a piece of bread, to be countersigned. Ajjab was to return to Assouan, let my friends know how matters stood, and tell them that I would try and communicate with them, if I ever got released from prison, as escape from the prison was an impossibility. Ajjab returned to Assouan, and handed over the receipt; but the tale he had to tell put an end, for the time being, to any attempts to assist me further.
When Father Ohrwalder escaped, bringing with him the two sisters and negress, Mankarious set about immediately to find some reliable messenger willing to undertake the journey to Omdurman with a view of ascertaining if my escape was at all possible. He argued that if Father Ohrwalder could escape with three women as an encumbrance to his flight, there was nothing, provided I was at liberty, to prevent my escaping; but those who knew the Soudan—and it was only such he might employ—argued that if the remainder of the captives were not already killed, they would be found chained in the prison awaiting their execution. Months slipped away before he could find any one to undertake the journey, and then an old but wiry desert Arab, El Haj Ahmad Abou Hawanein, came to terms with him. Hawanein was given two camels, some money, and a quantity of goods to sell and barter on his way up.
Some time in June or July, 1894, Abou Kees, a man employed in the Mission gardens, came to me while I was working at the mounds of Khartoum, and whispered that a man who had news for me was |197| hiding in the gardens, and that I was to try and effect a meeting with him. The man was Hawanein. Always suspicious of traps laid for me by the Khaleefa, I asked the man what he wanted. He replied that he had come from friends to help me. He had brought no letters, but by questioning him my suspicions disappeared, and I was soon deep in the discussion of plans for my escape. The camels he had brought with him were, he said, not up to the work of a rapid flight, and he suggested that he should return to Assouan, procure two good trotting camels, and also the couple of revolvers I asked for, as it was more than likely I should have to use them in getting clear of Khartoum.
Soon after Hawanein’s departure, the guide Abdallah, who brought away Rossignoli, put in his appearance. Ahmed Wad-el-Feki, employed in Marquet’s old garden, asked that I might be allowed to call and see a sick man at his house. On reaching the place, Feki introduced me to a young man, Abdallah, who, after a few words, asked me to meet him the following day, when he would bring me a letter. I met my “patient” again, when he handed me a bit of paper on which faint marks were discernible; these, he said, would come out clear upon heating the paper, and, as cauterization is one of the favourite remedies in the Soudan, some live charcoal was procured without exciting any suspicion. The words, which appeared, proved that the man was no spy, but had really come from the Egyptian War Office; however, before we had time to drop into a discussion of plans, some men employed in the place |198| came near, and we had to adjourn to the following day, when I was again to meet my “patient.” On this occasion we were left undisturbed, and fully discussed and settled upon our plans.
To escape along the western bank of the Nile was not to be thought of; this would necessitate our passing Omdurman, and to pass the town unobserved was very improbable. Abdallah, having left his camels and rifle at Berber, was to return there for them, and come up the eastern bank of the Nile, along which we were to travel when I escaped. During his absence I was to send Umm es Shole on weekly visits to her friends at Halfeyeh; as she was to escape with us, this arrangement was made for a twofold purpose. First, her visits would not excite suspicion at the critical moment, as the people both at Halfeyeh and Khartoum would have become accustomed to them; she was also to bring me the promised revolver concealed in her clothes, and then return to Halfeyeh for another visit. She and Abdallah would keep a watch on the banks of the Blue Nile for me and assist me in landing. My escape would have to be effected in my chains, and these, of course, would prevent my using my legs in swimming. I was to trust for support to the pieces of light wood on the banks, used by children and men when disporting themselves in the Nile, and to the current and whatever help I might get with my hands for landing on the opposite shore.
Abdallah went off, but never came back. I kept to our agreement for months, for the plan formed with |199| Abdallah was similar to that arranged with Hawanein. Besides this, Abdallah, in the event of not being able to find revolvers at Berber, was to continue his journey to the first military post, obtain them there, and exchange his camels for fast-trotting ones, as those he had left at Berber were of a poor race. In order to prove to any officer he met that he was really employed to effect my escape, I gave him two letters couched in such words that, should they fall into the hands of the Khaleefa or any of the Emirs, their contents would be a sort of puzzle to them. Each day during those months I looked forward eagerly to a sign from any one of the people entrusted with my escape.
For various reasons I considered it advisable to interview Abdallah after my release, and did so; but to make certain of his explanations, I also arranged that others should question him on the subject of Rossignoli’s flight and his reasons for not keeping his engagement with me, and this is what he says.