Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/103

Rh but your people have taken me prisoner, and sent me here; why do you ask me that question?" Slatin at this moved behind the other Emirs, and I believe made some attempt to make me understand that I should speak differently to them: My helplessness was galling to me; there was not a man there whom, pulled down as I was, I could not with sheer strength have crushed the life out of.

I was questioned about the number of troops at Wadi Halfa and Cairo, the fortifications, etc., but neither places would have recognized the fortresses I invented for the occasion, and the numbers of troops with which I invested them. When told that news had been received from Wad Nejoumi that the British troops were leaving, I admitted the truth of this, but said that they could all be brought back to Wadi Halfa in four days. All the questions, or nearly all, were in connection with the army and the movement of the troops, and this will be understood when it is remembered that, by some, I was believed to be "Pasha," and all Pashas in the Soudan were military leaders.

I have been shown a statement to the effect that my readiness to talk "made a bad impression," but this remark was not, at the time of writing, sufficiently explanatory — and yet it may have been. Other captives had grovelled at the feet of their captors; I did not, hence probably the "bad impression" created; and while the world may blame me for being so injudicious as to treat my powerful captors with such scant courtesy, it can hardly be expected that I, even had I not passed