He was deeply moved. For a while he was silent, after which he rubbed his forehead with his hand and began to speak of something else.
"The Mahdi sends you to Fashoda with the idea that there you will die. In this manner he will revenge himself upon you for your stubbornness, boy, which touched him deeply, and he will not lose his fame for 'mercy.' He always acts thus. But who knows who is destined to die first? Abdullahi suggested to him the idea that he should order the dogs who kidnapped you, to go with you. He rewarded them miserably, and now he fears that they may publish it. Besides, they both preferred that the people should not be told that there are still in Egypt troops, cannons, money, and Englishmen.—It will be a hard road and distant. You will go into a country desolate and unhealthy. So guard, as the eye in the head, those powders which I gave to you."
"Sir, order Gebhr once more not to dare to starve or hit Nell," said
Stas.
"Do not fear. I commended you to the old sheik who has charge of the post. He is an old acquaintance of mine. I gave him a watch and with that I gained his protection for you."
Saying this, he began to bid them farewell. Taking Nell in his arms, he pressed her to his bosom and repeated:
"May God bless you, my child."
In the meantime the sun descended and the night became starry. In the dusk resounded the snorting of horses and the groans of the heavily loaded camels.
XX
The old sheik Hatim faithfully kept his promise given to the Greek and watched over the children with great solicitude. The journey up the White Nile was difficult. They rode through Keteineh, Ed-Dueim, and Kawa; afterwards they passed Abba, a woody Nile island, on which before the war the Mahdi dwelt, in a hollow tree as a dervish hermit. The caravan often was compelled to make a detour around extensive floating masses overgrown with pyrus, or so-called "sudds," from which the breeze brought the poisoned odor of decomposed leaves carried by the current of water. English engineers had previously cut through these barriers, and formerly steamboats could ascend from Khartûm to Fashoda and farther. At present the river was blocked again and, being unable to run freely, overflowed on both sides. The right and left banks of this region were covered by a high jungle amid which stood hillocks of termites and solitary gigantic trees; here and there the forest reached the river. In dry places grew groves of acacias. During the first week they saw Arabian settlements and towns composed of houses with strange conical roofs made of dochnu straw, but beyond Abba, from the settlement of Gôz Abu Guma they rode in the country of the blacks. It was nearly desolate, for the dervishes had almost totally carried away the local negro population and sold it in the markets of Khartûm, Omdurmân, Fasher, Dar, El-Obeid, and other cities in the Sudân, Darfur, and Kordofân. Those inhabitants who succeeded in escaping slavery in thickets in the forests were exterminated by starvation and small-pox, which raged with unusual virulence along the White and Blue Niles. The dervishes themselves said that whole nations had died of it. The former plantations of sorghum, manioc, and bananas were covered by a jungle. Only wild beasts, not pursued by any one, multiplied plentifully. Sometimes before the evening twilight the children saw from a distance great herds of elephants, resembling movable rocks, walking with slow tread to watering places known only to themselves. At the sight of them Hatim, a former ivory dealer, smacked his lips, sighed, and spoke thus to Stas in confidence:
"Mashallah! How much wealth there is here! But now it is not worth while to hunt, for the Mahdi has prohibited Egyptian traders from coming to Khartûm, and there is no one to sell the tusks to, unless to the emirs for umbajas."