A Prisoner of the Khaleefa/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
A SERIOUS DILEMMA
As I write, there lie before me three successive paragraphs culled from a recent edition of a London paper. These paragraphs were intended to be, and doubtless were, amusing to their readers, but they contain inaccuracies. I have ascertained that one misstatement owes its origin to a report drawn up in connection with the guide's account of the successful escape of Father Rossignoli. The facts connected with that flight, and my reported refusal to escape when the opportunity (?) offered, find their place later in my narrative. For the moment I shall content myself with but one of the paragraphs, and fill in the details which, while not detracting from the humorous element introduced, will show that the episode referred to had somewhat of a pathetic, if not tragic, vein in it. This may have been lost sight of owing to the tale being recorded in an office about two thousand miles away from the scene of action, and the inaccuracies may be accounted for by the fact that the tale was told by one of that large class in the East whose greatest glory it is, when one of them has by constant practice attained a certain standard of inventive faculty and plausibility, to prove to the world that the race of Haroun-el-Rashid's story-tellers is not yet extinct. There can be little doubt that the guide and Wakih Idris, and maybe others, would be much entertained, if not a little surprised, if told that the whole of their tales had apparently been believed in.
On my servant Hasseena being sent into the Khaleefa's hareem in May, 1887, she obtained her release, or dismissal, by declaring that she was with child; she was not. In November, 1888, she certainly was, and the fact could not be concealed. Hasseena, having been a slave, could not well be legally married, so that when dismissed from the Khaleefa's hareem, she was sent as my property to the hareem of Idris es Saier, where she had, in addition to buying and preparing my food, to perform the housework and run messages for the women of Idris's household.
Idris I knew had long coveted Hasseena, and her being with child appeared to him a favourable opportunity of securing her for himself, for under ordinary circumstances, the woman being a slave and the child being born in his hareem, he could lay claim to the paternity, when mother and child would become free, the mother ranking now as a wife. He talked the matter over with Hasseena, and then sent her to interview me. I submitted the case to my friends in prison, and they showed that Idris had misread, or misunderstood, Surah IV. of the Quoran, which only justified his position towards Hasseena in the event of my being a prisoner of war, and he having captured Hasseena on the field. Things became still more complicated by Hasseena admitting to me that there were doubts in her own mind as to the child's paternity. Hasseena was of a light copper colour; Idris was as black as the ace of spades. It would only be reasonable to expect that the child when born would exhibit in the colour of its skin an evidence of its paternity, and it was precisely on this account that Hasseena wished to defer making any declaration until the event came off. If she elected to declare Idris the father, and the child at birth gave the lie to her statement, her life would be in danger; but before continuing the narrative, and detailing the complications which Hasseena's condition and her uncertainty on a vital point gave rise to it might be well to refer briefly to one of the moral code of laws instituted by the Mahdi, as this will help the reader to a better understanding of the quandary we were placed in.
While a man, having already the regulation quota of four legal wives, might crowd his hareem with as many female slaves and concubines as he could support or keep in order, a woman was restricted to the one husband or master. All breakings of our seventh commandment were, if proved, followed by flogging in the case of unmarried women and slaves, and by the stoning to death of married women; but, in the latter case, the sentence could not be given, nor the punishment inflicted, unless the woman confessed. Very few stonings to death took place, and these were in the earlier days of Mahdieh, when religious fanaticism held sway. The flogging has already been described. When a stoning to death was to take place, a hole was dug in the ground, and the woman buried to her neck in it. The crowd stood facing the victim, about fifteen to twenty yards distant, and on a given signal the stoning commenced; but it is only right to say that the Soudanese themselves hated and feared taking part in such an execution. None of the stones thrown had, singly, the force or weight to cause stunning or death, and the horrid spectacle was presented of what appeared to be a trunkless head, slightly jerking backwards and forwards and from side to side to avoid the stones being hurled at it, and this ordeal continued for an hour or more. Sometimes a relative or friend, under pretence of losing his temper in upbraiding or cursing the woman, smashed in her head with one of the small axes usually carried by the Soudanese, thus putting her at once out of her torture and misery. Shortly before sunset, the relatives and friends would come out to take away the body and give it decent burial, for the soul had fled, purified with the woman's blood, to the next world.
Knowing what would be the result of a confession, it will be wondered that any woman ever did confess; the number who did so is, admittedly, small. In one of the three cases of stoning to death I know of, the confession was extorted by torture, and the poor woman preferred the horrible but certain death by the time the sun set, to the lingering death she was enduring from day to day. Thousands of women were charged with the breaking of this particular rule or commandment of the Mahdi, but almost all the charges were made by other women — and this, too, out of sheer jealousy, not from any feeling of outraged morality.
I may now proceed with the narration of the quandary Hasseena had placed us in, herself included. I had been kept chained and closely confined for nineteen months, and was under Idris es Saier's particular supervision; Hasseena, during the same period, had been a servant in his hareem, and also in his entire charge. If I claimed the paternity of the child, the probabilities were that Idris would get into trouble with the Khaleefa; if Idris claimed it, his head might be in danger, for decapitation or hanging was the punishment ordered for the male offender, and in all cases Hasseena was liable to flogging or stoning to death. Again, if I claimed the paternity of the child, and there were reasonable grounds after its birth to believe that the paternity should be looked for in some other direction, and I knew that it should be; then, while Idris would clear himself to the Khaleefa, I should have been punished for lying to him, and Hasseena would be in the same predicament as before.
I had inquiries made outside as to Hasseena's movements when marketing, and as to those whom she associated with, or went to see; being satisfied, as a result of the inquiries, that the expected arrival would be a shade lighter in colour than its mother, I, acting on the advice of my prison friends, claimed the child as mine, thus leaving Idris to get out of the thing as best he could. There was, as above indicated, a risk in my claiming the paternity, but it was worth while running it. The Khaleefa, so my friends told me, would now certainly release me from prison, as my wife and child would be a guarantee for my good behaviour if released, and also guarantee me against any escape, for to try and escape with a woman and baby made success very problematical, while the woman would certainly hinder me in any attempt to escape, when it could only result in the death of herself and child. It was for this reason — to hinder escape — that the Khaleefa kept his captives well supplied with wives, and showed his displeasure very plainly if the expected results did not follow. But my claiming the paternity did not please Idris, as it deprived him of all chance of securing Hasseena for himself, and also left him at the mercy of the Khaleefa for his neglect of duty in allowing Hasseena to come near me, so he empanelled a jury of Soudanese matrons to inquire into the affair.
At the time when Hasseena startled our little world with her interesting condition, Omdurman was, and had been for some months, almost depleted of its male population; the rumours of an expedition (Stanley's, to rescue Emin) had resulted in a considerable force being sent to Equatoria. The army to attack Abyssinia had been in the field for months, so also had the army which Wad Nejoumi was to lead a few months later to its destruction at Toski.
A number of the ladies empanelled for the jury ought not, unless they belonged to the Gawaamah tribe, to have been eligible for election, and others, under the circumstances, should have avoided publicity; but here was an opportunity for them, and they were not going to miss it. They came together to save themselves — not Hasseena or Idris — hence the extraordinary verdict they gave: to the effect that it was not only possible for a woman to be with child nineteen months — as Hasseena presumably was, but for twenty-four months, while some hotly contested for an extension of the time to years!
Idris had still another card to play; he averred that it was impossible for the child to be mine, and he now swore it was not his. Then Hasseena ought to be flogged and sent to prison; but as Idris would be entrusted with the flogging himself, it was to be understood that he was not going to damage his prospective property. It was now the turn of those whom I remarked ought not to have been eligible for election to the jury; the tales they told to account for their own interesting condition are worthy of the best traditions of the "Thousand and One Nights;" but, even if written, they would be less fit for translation and publication than the originals of the famous tales. Idris now appealed to the Kadi, who, after interviewing the jury, supported their contentions, and related the whole story to the Khaleefa, much to his amusement and the discomfiture of Idris; for, while graciously sending me his congratulations on the coming event, he ordered the unconditional release of Hasseena, who went to live in what might be called the "Christian" quarter of the town.
In January the girl-child was born, and named "Makkieh" (shackles), a name which appealed to the humorous side of the Khaleefa, who, being tickled at the idea of the name, in a fit of good-humour, sent word to me to ask if I would undertake the manufacture of gunpowder if he released me. I unfortunately replied that I did not understand the manufacturing of it, and this aroused his suspicions, which did not abate one jot when, shortly afterwards, a Bohemian baker, who had strayed from Haifa, was taken prisoner, and sent on to Omdurman as a captured spy. This man, whom I knew only by the name of Joseppi—though he had a string of other names, which I have forgotten—was a Bohemian by birth and a baker by trade. He was not of strong intellect, and what intellect he had, had maybe been impaired by a "music madness." From the rambling statements he made to me during his year's imprisonment, I gather that he had tramped Europe as a wandering musician, landing finally in Egypt, where he tramped from the Mediterranean to the frontier. It is quite evident that instead of coppers he received drinks in exchange for his strains, and this further added to his mental troubles, though the drunkenness he has been charged with was, in my opinion, more the result of circumstances and misfortune than a natural craving for ardent liquors.
On leaving Wadi Haifa, he had expected to find, as he had found in Europe and the part of Egypt he had tramped through, villages or towns within the day's tramp. He had not the slightest idea of what the desert was until he found himself in it. After some days of wandering, during which he eat pieces of his worn-out boots in lieu of other food, he struck the Nile, and, wandering along, ignorant of the direction he was taking, he came upon a party of dervishes, whom he tried to communicate with, and after, by gesticulations, showing them that he wanted bread or food, he commenced to "soothe the savage breast" with strains from his violin. They took him prisoner, destroyed his instrument, and sent him on to Omdurman as a spy. On arrival there, he was ushered into the presence of the Khaleefa, who was undecided as to whether he had a madman or an actor to deal with, for on dates being brought for Joseppi to eat, he threw them about, and then lay flat on his face. He was sent to prison and heavily chained; in the process of having his chains and bars fitted, he fainted away.
Joseppi was in my charge for about one year, and while being as harmless as a child, he caused me endless trouble. During the day he would remain perfectly quiet, but at night-time he would insist upon singing or humming. As his tunes had neither beginning nor end, and were composed of notes snatched from here and there, we soon tired of it, and Joseppi received a light flogging on one occasion for not "shutting his mouth" when requested to do so. I remonstrated with him after he had been flogged, and told him that he should not continue to hum after other prisoners had asked him to keep quiet. He ruminated over this, and thinking, maybe, at the moment that I was taking the part of the others against him, he went off to the Saier, and told him
| Gaoler | Neufeld | Gaoler | ||
| Son of Fauzi Pasha | Fauzi Pasha | |||
| mealtime in the saier. | ||||
confidentially that I was a great and well-known general in Europe, and a few other things. Joseppi had an enormous appetite, and was always hungry; he caused me a great deal of trouble during the worst days of the famine, when food was so scarce, for after sharing my scanty meal, he would wander off and pester every group for a scrap of food. Eventually, we had to provide three bowls for him; just when our food came in, we handed him his bowls, and thus were allowed a few moments' peace. We had finished our meal before he had finished his food, so that our group, at least, was free of his importunities. He came to grief through eating pieces of camel-skin, which the gaolers used to sell to the poorer prisoners during the famine.
Fearing that he would die in the prison, I sent word to the "Christian" quarter, asking that the Khaleefa should be prayed to release Joseppi, which was done, and he found congenial employment for a time in the bakery of Youssef Sawar. Soon afterwards, he borrowed a few dollars here and there for the purpose of buying grain at El Fun; he started off dressed in a new jibbeh, carrying his dollars, and a well-stocked basket of provisions for his two days' journey. At the very moment when Wad Adlan was pleading with the Khaleefa to release me from prison, so that I could assist him in the work of the Beit-el-Mal, a deputation of the captives arrived at the door of the house to tell the Khaleefa that Joseppi must have escaped, as he should have been back in Omdurman some days ago. Turning to Wad Adlan, the Khaleefa said, "El boomi mahhgaad — Abdulla Neufeld ogud? Khallee ossbur." ("The fool did not stop — when he had the chance to escape. Will Neufeld? Let him wait a bit.") This was the second time the poor fellow had cost me my liberty. There is no doubt that the man was murdered for the sake of his food or money, for his remains were found later, on the road between Khartoum and El Fun.