But after a certain amount of practice an officer with a head on his shoulders learns how to sift the reports gathered from spies, deserters, prisoners, and peasants, and to get a few grains of valuable fact out of bushels of chaff. So the chief interpreter went to work, and translated much useless and some practical talk.
The most interesting account he had to give could not be called useful, however, because it referred to past events, and these were already fully reported; but the present party had not heard them. It was concerning the death of Colonel Stewart, the only English companion Gordon had for so long, and of which the man professed to have been a witness in the October of 1884. The following was the Arab’s account, transcribed from the note-book of Sergeant Barton, who could take things down in shorthand, when men spoke slowly and deliberately, or with the delay, as in the present instance, of an interpreter:—
“When Gordon Pasha knew that there was no hope, and that Khartoum must fall, because, though he could hold his own against the enemy without, treason in the heart of the place was a thing against which he was powerless, and he knew, though no one else may have done so, that he was betrayed, he sent off Colonel Stewart in a steamer for a pretended purpose which imposed upon him, his real object being to save his friend by getting him out of the way when the attack, which he expected from day to day, came.
“Nothing would have made Colonel Stewart leave Khartoum if he had suspected this, but he did not, and he set out in the firm conviction that his going would really be useful. So say those that should know. What is certain is that he went, and that his steamer struck on a rock in the Wad Gamr country, for I myself have seen it. I was with the Sheikh Omar at Berti at the time. Sheikh Omar had a nephew Sulieman Wad Gamr, a very bitter enemy of the Turk, and of any one who supported the Turk, but a man with a double face, who promised most and smiled the sweetest, when he had the dagger concealed in his sleeve.
“Colonel Stewart did not like the look of him when he came to offer his services, but Hassan Bey, who was with the Englishman, thought that Sulieman was to be trusted, and so a conference was held, and Sulieman undertook to find camels to take all the shipwrecked travellers on to Merawi if he could. Afterwards he came and said that he knew of camels, but the people who owned them were afraid that they would be taken from them by force, and if those who came to conclude the bargain had arms in their hands, there was no chance of any camels being brought forward, but if those who were to bargain for them were unarmed, it was very certain that as many as were necessary might be got. And when, seeing no other way than to trust Sulieman, Colonel Stewart agreed to this, he was directed to go at a certain hour to the house of one Fakreitman, who was blind, but to be sure to take no weapons, neither he nor any of the party. They went to Fakreitman, the blind man’s house, accordingly, and Sulieman met them there with the men that he had instructed to carry out his secret, and others who were not entrusted. I was in the courtyard with others serving under the Sheikh Omar, and we wondered where the camels were, for we saw none in the neighbourhood, and yet the bargaining was going on. Then suddenly, at a signal from Sulieman Wad Gamr, the appointed men attacked Colonel Stewart and his companions, and there was such a scuffle as is possible when there are sharp swords and daggers on one side and no weapons at all on the other.
“Colonel Stewart and others were soon put to death. Hassan Bey seized the owner of the house, the blind man, Fakreitman, and held him before him as a shield, and so got clear of the house with only a slight wound. We outside might have dispatched him, but we had no orders, and did not interfere. And so he got clear, and letting the blind man go, escaped.”
Such was the prisoner’s account, and there was no reason to doubt the general tenor of it, though of course the details were not to be implicitly relied upon.
The man was asked why, since he seemed to bear no particular grudge against the English, he took such pains to establish himself in a good position for a sure shot at the convoy. It was not a wise question. The Arab laughed, and asked if the English had any particular enmity to the Soudanese.
“No,” was the reply. “On the contrary, we wish to be friends with them.”
“And yet,” said the prisoner, “you have killed twenty thousand of us in the last few moons. When we fight we mean to kill; and when we hunt we mean to kill. Are you not the same?”