Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/175

Rh spending the nights in the Umm Hagar, and feeling secure in my comparative freedom and safe from the exactions of the other gaolers, as I had baksheeshed Idris well, I firmly refused to be bled any further. My particular guardian, not daring, after what had occurred to my former guardian, to order me into the Umm Hagar, went a step further, and refused to allow me to leave my mud hut at all for any purpose whatever. I insisted upon being allowed to go to the place of ablution — about one hundred yards distant — and being refused, set off, receiving at every step a blow from the courbag. Being heavily chained, I was helpless, and could not reach my tormentor, as he could skip away from my reach, which was limited to the length of the bars connecting my feet, which bars were fifteen inches in length. It was on this occasion, nighttime too, that Idris es Saier paid another surprise visit to the prison enclosure to see what number of "unauthorized" prisoners were sleeping outside the Umm Hagar, and, furious at the number he discovered, he ordered all outside, without exception, to be flogged.

I and fifteen to twenty others received a hundred and fifty lashes each — at least, I received this number; others repented by crying out after twenty or thirty blows. I alternately clenched my teeth and bit my lips to prevent a sound of pain escaping, often as I was asked, "Will you not cry out? Is your head and heart still like black iron?" and the more they reminded me of the courage I was exhibiting, the more reason I had for not giving way or breaking down. — But the mental ordeal was far, far more terrible than