Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/105

Rh details of an execution; these having been described to me, I refused food and drink. I was determined to deprive the fanatics of one looked-for element connected with my execution — but I may not enter into details.

At dawn the following morning, a dervish came to me, and crossing my right hand over the left at the wrists, palms downward, proceeded to bind them together with a rope made of palm fibre. When the ropes had, with a bit of wood used as a tourniquet, been drawn well into the flesh, water was poured over them. The agony as the ropes swelled was excruciating; they "bit" into the flesh, and even now I cannot look at the scars on my hands without a shudder, and almost experiencing again the same sensations as those of twelve years ago.

With the perspiration rolling off me with the pain I was enduring, and no longer able to conceal that I was suffering, I was led forth to be the sport of the rabble. Made to stand up in the open space, bareheaded, with thousands around me, I believed the moment for my decapitation had come, and muttering a short prayer, I knelt down and bent my head, but was at once pulled to my feet again; the populace wanted their sport out of me first. Dervishes rushed at me prodding with spears and swords, and while this was going on, two men, one on each side of me, with the mouths of their ombeyehs placed against my ears, blew their loudest blasts. One powerful man in particular, with a large spear, gave me the idea that it was he who had been told to give the final