The first gleam of pleasure with which I had welcomed these messengers quickly changed to considerable anxiety.
I was now informed that the attempt to destroy us by poison, and subsequently by a treacherous attack at Masindi, was mainly due to the intrigues of Abou Saood, who had originally advised Kabba Rega to resist me should I arrive in his country. This traitor Abou Saood had considered that we should be certainly massacred when once in the heart of Unyoro. He had therefore assumed a despotic command of Fatiko and all the neighbouring countries shortly after my departure; and he had given orders ` to the natives and to the sheik, Rot Jarma, that "no supplies of corn should be provided for Major Abdullah's troops."
Rot Jarma had been faithful to the government, and his people had carried corn to Major Abdullah. Abou Saood had therefore ordered his men to attack Rot Jarma. They had accordingly surprised him while believing in the protection of the government, and had captured his cattle, together with a number of slaves. In that attack the brigands had lost five men, whose guns had been subsequently taken to Kabba Rega for sale by the natives we had seen at Masindi.
Abou Saood then, enraged at the loss of five men, together with their guns, had sent for Wat-el-Mek from Faloro, and had given him the command above the well-known Ali Hussein, with orders to carry fire and sword through the country.
Major Abdullah had vainly expostulated. Abou Saood had personally threatened him; and Ali Hussein and an officer named Lazim, with some others, had gone armed into the government camp, and had actually seized natives who had taken refuge with Abdullah, from whose house they were thus dragged by force in defiance of authority.
When the news arrived from Foweera that I had punished Suleiman for the murder of the prisoner, both Abou Saood and his people had declared, that they "would secure Major Abdullah in a forked pole, or sheba, and treat hiin in a similar manner." They had also threatened to attack the government camp.
Major Abdullah had written to me at Masindi requesting instructions; he had intrusted the letter to a native of Faieera. This man had most unfortunately arrived at Masindi late in the evening upon which the troops had been poisoned. On the following morning he was a witness to the murder of poor Monsoor and Ferritch Bagara; and when the general action commenced, he climbed up a tree at no great distance from the station, and cried out that "he was the bearer of a letter from Abdullah."
The bullets whizzed so thickly about him that he descended from his post, and then, being alarmed lest he might be killed by the natives should his mission be discovered, he had run away as fast as possible, and returned 160 miles to Fatiko. Thus I never received Major Abdullah's letter.
The letter-carrier having seen our handful of men surrounded by many thousands of the enemy in Masindi, and knowing that the perfect organization of Unyoro would bring countless enemies upon us, who would occupy the routes by ambuscades, had considered our position hopeless.
The report was spread "that we were all destroyed:" thus Abou Saood was delighted.