A loud-voiced protest rose from the Greeks. The train to Khartum was to depart soon, and the service is not hourly in the Soudan. A swift correspondence took place between the steamer and the mudiria. The priests were permitted to disembark. The laymen revolted against such discrimination and were soon released. Within a half-hour, the second-class passengers followed after them; and, with no man of influence left on board, the steamer slipped her moorings and tied up in the middle of the river at the foot of the second cataract.
We were landed early next morning and the Armenian, in company with three Greek residents, met me at the top of the bank.
“The patriarch has made this man your guardian,” he explained, pointing to one of his companions. “He is keeper of the Hotel Tewfekieh. He has your third-class ticket to Khartum, and you will live with him until you leave.”
It was then Thursday morning. The next train was scheduled to leave on Saturday night. In two days I had more than exhausted the sights of Wady Halfa, and time hung heavily on my hands. Until my meeting with the Greeks, I had never dreamed of proceeding beyond the second cataract. The sun-baked city of Omdurman teemed with interest, perhaps; but a sweltering two-day journey across the desert was no pleasant anticipation. Moreover, half my allotted time had already passed, and my trip around the globe was by no means half completed. Unfortunately, my worldly wealth, if it was my own, was tied up in a bit of cardboard in the possession of my host. It was a small fortune, too, more than ten dollars. Had I been the possessor of half that amount, I should have turned back to Port Saïd forthwith. The good patriarch, certainly, would shed no tears of regret if I failed to appear before him on Tuesday morning. My “guardian,” too, always spoke of the ticket as my property, and would, no doubt, relinquish it if I could offer a reasonable excuse for turning back. But I could not, and who should say that the railway company would refund the money if I could.
I had, therefore, resolved to carry out the plan as first proposed, when, one afternoon, a native soldier broke in on my musing and summoned me to the office of the commissioner of customs.
“I hear you’re going to Khartum,” said that official. “You know you must have a pass from the mudir. Thought I’d tell you so you wouldn’t get held up at the last moment. The mudiria is closed now, but as soon as it opens, you can get a pass all right.”
“Hope not,” I muttered, as I turned away.
The next morning a servant in a turban of daring color-scheme ushered me into the office of Governor Parsons, Pasha, raised his palms to his forehead, and withdrew. The mudir was a slight, yet sturdy Englishman of that frank, energetic type which the British government seems singularly fortunate in choosing as rulers of her dependencies abroad. My application for a pass awakened within him no suspicion of my real desire. He jotted down my answers on the official blank before him as if this granting of permission to ragged adventurers to enter a territory so lately pacified were but a part of his daily routine.
“Name? Birthplace? Nationality? Age? Profession?” He read the questions in a dispassionate voice that quickly dispelled my hope of having the official ban raised against me. “Purpose in going to Khartum? Probable length of stay?”
Oh, well, it did not matter. There would be a satisfaction in having penetrated so far into Africa, and I could trust to fortune to bring me down again.