CHAPTER XVI
HOPE AND DESPAIR
While still a prisoner in the Saier, Mankarious Effendi, with Mohammad Fargoun and Selim Aly, engaged a man of the Ababdeh, Mohammad Ajjab, to make his way to Omdurman with a threefold object: he was to inquire if I was still alive; if so, to pay me a hundred dollars, and then to try and make arrangements for my escape. On arrival in Omdurman, Ajjab met two of his own people — Mohammad and Karrar Beshir — who recommended him, when he inquired about me, never to mention my name if he wished to keep his head on his shoulders. They could only tell him that I was still in prison, chained, and under sentence of death. Similar information and the same recommendation were given to him by people in the Muslimanieh quarter; but a Greek whom Ajjab knew only by his Mahdieh name of Abdallah, said that he would arrange for a meeting between him and my servant. Through Hasseena, Ajjab sent me word of the object of his coming to Omdurman. As the Greek offered to become my trustee, Ajjab handed him the hundred dollars, taking from him a receipt, and sending
