Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/135

Rh coming on the bank, their chains would excite no suspicion, for, as I have already said, hundreds similarly fettered were going about the town. Making their way to the nearest blacksmith, he would remove their chains in a few moments for the sake of obtaining the iron, which was valuable to him.

We were not at that time altogether without news; papers published in Egypt were constantly arriving, brought by the Khaleefa's spies, who passed regularly backwards and forwards between Omdurman and Cairo, keeping up communications between the Khaleefa and some of the more fanatical Mohammedans resident at the capital. Since my return I have inquired as to an incident which happened on the frontier in connection with the army some years ago. I shall only relate what we heard, and as given out by the Khaleefa and his Emirs. All the English officers, according to the report received, had been dismissed, and had left with the Sirdar. The English soldiers had also been removed from Egypt; so the Khaleefa was jubilant, and looked forward to the near future when the Egyptian troops would attempt to attack him, and when not a man of them was to be left alive. I was to have been a witness of the great battles when the angels of Allah were to fight with the believers, and assist the Ansar to utterly exterminate the Turks. While this was still the topic of conversation, another messenger arrived to say that the trouble had been arranged; the English officers and troops were not leaving, and as the Khaleefa's hopes fell, ours rose.