Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/183

Rh a risk in my claiming the paternity, but it was worth while running it. The Khaleefa, so my friends told me, would now certainly release me from prison, as my wife and child would be a guarantee for my good behaviour if released, and also guarantee me against any escape, for to try and escape with a woman and baby made success very problematical, while the woman would certainly hinder me in any attempt to escape, when it could only result in the death of herself and child. It was for this reason — to hinder escape — that the Khaleefa kept his captives well supplied with wives, and showed his displeasure very plainly if the expected results did not follow. But my claiming the paternity did not please Idris, as it deprived him of all chance of securing Hasseena for himself, and also left him at the mercy of the Khaleefa for his neglect of duty in allowing Hasseena to come near me, so he empanelled a jury of Soudanese matrons to inquire into the affair.

At the time when Hasseena startled our little world with her interesting condition, Omdurman was, and had been for some months, almost depleted of its male population; the rumours of an expedition (Stanley's, to rescue Emin) had resulted in a considerable force being sent to Equatoria. The army to attack Abyssinia had been in the field for months, so also had the army which Wad Nejoumi was to lead a few months later to its destruction at Toski.

A number of the ladies empanelled for the jury ought not, unless they belonged to the Gawaamah tribe, to have been eligible for election, and others,