With his hands tied across his chest, and to the strains of the melancholy ombeÿa, he was led forth to the market-place, accompanied by an immense crowd. Calmly mounting the angareb beneath the scaffold, he himself placed his head in the noose, and, refusing to drink the water offered to him, told the hangman to complete his work; the rope was pulled taut, the angareb was removed, and there Ibrahim swung like a marble statue, until his soul left his body, the outstretched index finger alone indicating that he died in the true faith of Islam. In spite of the interdiction, wails of sorrow filled the city; but the Khalifa rejoiced that he had rid himself of so dangerous an enemy, and refrained from punishing this disobedience to his orders. He sent his brother Yakub to the funeral, as if to show to the world that Adlan had merely been punished in accordance with the law, and that the well-known animosity between the two had nothing to do with the matter.
His successor as Emin Beit el Mal was a certain Nur Wad Ibrahim whose grandfather was a Takruri. He did not, therefore, belong to the tribes of the Nile valley, and thus had a greater claim on the Khalifa's confidence and consideration.
As regards myself, the Khalifa seemed to grow daily more suspicious. Previous to Ibrahim Adlan's departure for the Gezira, the answer to my letter, which had been sent to my family through Osman Digna, had arrived. It contained only news of a private nature, and expressed the great delight of my family that they had succeeded in at last getting into communication with me. At the same time, they wrote to the Khalifa in submissive words, expressing their gratitude for the kind and honourable treatment which I received at his hands. They also assured him of their great devotion to him, and thanked him for the high honour he had conferred upon them by inviting them to come to Omdurman; but my brother regretted his inability to accept, as he was at that time a secretary in the office of the High Chamberlain of His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, whilst the other brother was a lawyer and lieutenant in the Artillery Reserve; they were therefore both unable, in virtue of their positions, to undertake so long a journey. My master had called me up, and, on handing me the letters, had ordered me to translate them to him; then, considering for a few moments, he said to me, "It was my intention to induce one of your brothers to come here and see me; and I did what I had never done before,—wrote a letter to them. As they make excuses and refuse to come, and as they now know that you are well, I forbid you to have any more correspondence with them. Further communications would only make you unhappy. Do you understand what I mean?" "Certainly," I replied, "your orders shall be obeyed; and I also think that further communication with my relatives is not necessary." "Where is the Gospel that has been sent to you?" asked he, looking at me fixedly. "I am a Moslem," I answered, for I was now on my guard; "and I have no Gospel in my house. They sent me a translation of the Kuran, the Holy Book, which your secretary saw when the box was opened, and which is still in my possession." "Then bring it to me to-morrow," he said, and signed to me to withdraw.
It was perfectly clear to me that he no longer trusted me; and I knew that after Nejumi's defeat he had several times spoken in this sense to the Kadis. I had already spent almost all the money I had received in gifts amongst my comrades; and now some of these began to murmur, and were disappointed that the sum was so small; and I knew that they were intriguing against me. Who could have induced him to believe that the Kuran which had been sent to me was the Gospel? The next day, I gave it to him. The translation was by Ullman. He examined it carefully, and then said: "You say that this is the Kuran; it is in the language of unbelievers, and perhaps they have made alterations." "It is a literal translation into my own language," I replied, calmly, "and its object is to make me understand the Holy Book which has come from God, and was made known to mankind by the Prophet, in the Arabic language. If you wish, you can send it to Neufeld, who is in captivity in the prison, and with whom I have no intercourse; and you can ascertain from him if my assertion is correct." "I do not mistrust you, and I believe what you say," he replied, in a somewhat more amiable tone; "but people have spoken to me about it, and you had better destroy the book." When I had told him that I was perfectly willing to do this, he continued, "Also I wish you to return the present your brothers and sisters sent me; I can make no use of it, and it will be a proof to them that I place no value on worldly possessions."
He now had his secretary summoned, and ordered him to write a letter in my name to my family, to the effect that it was not necessary to correspond any more; and, after I had signed it, it was sent, together with the travelling-bag, to the Beit el Mal, to be despatched to Suakin. From that day, I was more careful than ever to do nothing to increase the mistrust which I saw had sprung up in Abdullahi's mind. After Adlan's death, however, he thought it necessary to warn me again, and cautioned me most seriously against becoming mixed up in any sort of conspiracy. Assembling all his mulazemin, he asserted, in the most forcible language, that I was suspected of being a spy; that he had been told I invariably questioned the camel postmen who arrived, about the situation; that I received visitors in my house at night who were known to be out of favour with him; and that I had gone so far as to inquire in what part of his house his bedroom was situated. "I am afraid," he continued, "that if you do not change your line of conduct, you will follow in the footsteps of my old enemy Adlan."
This was rather a blow to me; but I knew that now, more than ever, I had need of being calm and collected. "Sire!" said I, in a loud voice, "I cannot defend myself against unknown enemies; but I am perfectly innocent of all they have told you. I leave my detractors in the hands of God. For more than six years, in sunshine and rain, I have stood at your door, ever ready to receive and carry out your orders. At your command, I have given up all my old friends, and have no communication with any one. I have even given up all connection with my relatives, and that without the slightest remonstrance. Such a thing as conspiracy has never even entered my heart. During all these long years, I have never made a complaint. Sire, what have I done? All that I do is not done out of fear of you, but out of love for you; and I cannot do more. Should God still have further trials in store for me, I shall calmly and willingly submit to my fate; but I have full reliance in your sense of justice."
"What have you to say to his words?" he said to the assembled mulazemin, after a moment's silence. All, without exception, admitted that they had never noticed anything in my behaviour which could give rise to such a suspicion; my enemies also—and I well knew who they were, and who were responsible for getting me into this dangerous position—were obliged to admit this. "I forgive you," said he; "but avoid for the future giving further cause for complaint," and, holding out his hand for me to kiss, he signed to me to withdraw. He must have felt that he had wronged me; for the next day he summoned me, spoke to me kindly, and warned me against my enemies, who, he said, were as a thorn in my flesh. I professed affection and confidence in him; and he then said, in quite a confidential tone, "Do not make enemies, for you know that Mahdia is conducted in accordance with the Moslem law: should you be accused before the Kadi of treason, and two witnesses make good the accusation, you are lost; for I cannot go against the law to save you."
What an existence in a country where one's very life hung on the evidence of two witnesses! Thanking him for his advice, I promised to follow it, and said I would, of course, do all in my power to deserve his confidence. When I returned home at midnight, tired and worn out by this constant strain, my devoted Saadalla informed me, to my great annoyance, that, only a few minutes before, one of the Khalifa's eunuchs had brought a closely-veiled female, who was now in my house.
I ought to have been greatly pleased about this, for it was a proof that the Khalifa had forgiven me; but my first thought was, how to rid myself of this present without creating suspicion. Saadalla and I now entered the house; and, to my horror, I found that underneath the veil was an Egyptian who had been born at Khartum, and who was, consequently, from a Sudanese point of view, a lady of a comparatively fair complexion. She was seated on the carpet; and, after we had exchanged greetings, she replied to my query as to her nationality with such rapidity of speech that I, who spoke Arabic fairly well, had the greatest difficulty in following the romantic history of her life.
She was the daughter, she said, of an Egyptian officer who, I afterwards learnt, had only been a private soldier, and who had fallen in the fight against the Shilluks, under Yusef Bey. As this had taken place upwards of twenty years before, I could, without any great effort of calculation, estimate fairly accurately that this good lady was well out of her teens; and as she admitted that her first husband had been killed during the capture of Khartum, that her mother was an Abyssinian who had been educated in Khartum, and was still alive, and that she had an enormous number of relatives, I really believe that, had my head not been clean-shaven, my hair would veritably have stood on end. This far-travelled and widely-experienced lady informed me that she had been one of the many hundreds of Abu Anga's wives, and I had now been chosen as the happy successor of this old slave. After his death, she had been captured, with several of her rivals, by the Abyssinians, when King John attacked Gallabat, but had been subsequently liberated by Zeki Tummal; and she knew so many details of all the fights in this neighbourhood, that, had my memory been only capable of retaining them, they would have now been of great interest to my readers. A short time ago, the Khalifa had ordered Abu Anga's remaining widows to be brought to Omdurman, for distribution amongst his followers; she then went on to say that the Khalifa himself had specially selected her as my wife, and she added, in a subdued tone, that she rejoiced to have fallen into the hands of a fellow-countryman. I explained to her that I was not an Egyptian, but an European. As, however, my skin was somewhat tanned, and the circumstances in which I lived gave her a pretext for claiming me as a compatriot, I was obliged to say that I would provide as far as possible for her maintenance and comfort; and, as the night was well advanced, I bade her follow my servant Saadalla, who would make arrangements for her.