been thrown into prison with me at Omdurman, gave me, as their fellow-captive, first their sympathy, and then their complete confidence. I learned from them the fate of those of Saleh's caravan whom I had left alive at Dongola. They had, they told me, been executed in batches of varying numbers at intervals of some days, Elias my clerk being the last to be executed, and he not being executed until about two months after my departure from Dongola. Nejoumi, for reasons which will be at once seen, kept him alive to the last, and then doubtless only gave the order for his execution when, despairing of my being sent back to him, he gave way to the importunities of the other Emirs anxious to see the last of Saleh's people executed.
From what they confided to me, there could not be the slightest doubt that a conviction of the imposture of the Mahdi's successor was growing and spreading amongst the Mahdists; but the system of espionage instituted by the Khaleefa nipped in the bud any outward show of it. There can be also no doubt that these confidants of Nejoumi had, in some way, compromised themselves when speaking in the presence of some of the Khaleefa's agents, and that Nejoumi himself had only not been ordered back with them because of his popularity and the Khaleefa's fear and jealousy of him. There was no one whom Nejoumi, or, for the matter of that, any one — not even excepting the Khaleefa himself, might implicitly trust in the Soudan. The man to whom you gave your innermost confidences might be friend or foe, and as all changed face as rapidly and constantly as
