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A PRISONER OF THE KHALEEFA
on with the things I ask for. Can you give me any news as to how my business is progressing at Assouan, and the transactions of my manager? Our common friends here are in a sad way. Slatin will have told you all about the forced circumcisions; and now all the Christians have been ordered to marry three or four wives, and are engaged with marriage ceremonies. Beppo and I are in prison together in chains; other prisoners are Ibrahim Fauzi, Ibrahim Hamza, of Berber, who was arrested after Slatin's escape; Ahmed and Bekheit Egail; Sadik and Besher have been transported to Equatoria, with two of their relations. Your messenger brought with him seventy dollars, which have been given to Beppo, and I enclose his receipt for them. Kindly translate the letter I enclose for Wingate; I have written it in German, as no one here but me understands the language. Please keep these letters secret. For God's sake, do not let the newspaper people get hold of them, as you know, if they did, it would cost me my head. Perhaps, if you could get them to give as news something like this, it would help me: "We hear that, after the escape of Slatin, Neufeld was secured against escape; he has rendered great services to Mahdieh with the saltpetre; he would be able to replace Osta Abdallah, who is now old and feeble; Neufeld is in the greatest distress, and in prison with his certain death close at hand; the people in the Soudan believe he is a relation of Slatin."
Onoor Issa went off with my replies, undertaking to return in a few months, after having made arrangements between Berber and Cairo for my escape; and during his absence I was to scheme for any excuse to get out of prison; escape from there was impossible. Onoor — or the translators of his accounts — are mistaken in saying that he actually met me in prison; all negotiations were carried on through the Abyssinian woman whom he employed to come into the prison for "medical attendance," or Umm es Shole, and days and days elapsed between the visits sometimes, in all amounting to maybe two months. There were times
