Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/228

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178
A PRISONER OF THE KHALEEFA

a number of large copper boilers, and an officer's camp bath. The latter must have been taken from Khartoum or Hicks Pasha's army. The Fellati grew very sullen, and Yacoub, knowing that the Khaleefa was entirely dependent upon the Fellatis — the only people who seemed to understand the extraction of the saltpetre — rather than offend the man, asked me if I thought I could not find deposits elsewhere. I suggested looking further north, but this would not do. He wanted a place close to Omdurman — where I could be watched. I then suggested Khartoum, but the Khaleefa would not at first hear of my transfer there. What probably decided him was, that when I had been two weeks at Halfeyeh, Hasseena came to tell me Makkieh was dead, and the Khaleefa, hearing of the loss, and believing that there was now nothing to hold me in the Soudan, agreed to the transfer to Khartoum, as there a better watch could be kept upon me. I was not sorry to leave Halfeyeh, for although the place offered every facility for my escape, I saw that I had a jealous and bitter enemy in the Fellati, who was then spying on my every movement. It was certain that he would frustrate any plans I might make for flight, and suspicion would have been aroused immediately if any of the guides came to me there. Hamad'na Allah was made director of the Khartoum saltpetre works! Abdel Wohatt was his second, and I was to work under the orders of Wohatt. On arrival at Khartoum, January, 1891, I was also placed in charge of Khaleel Hassanein, the director of the arsenal, and all three had to answer for me with