Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/191

 

IBRAHIM WAD ADLAN

A opportunity here presents itself for referring to that little-written-about, and, therefore, little-known strange character in Mahdieh — Ibrahim Wad Adlan, the Amin Beit-el-Mal. Maybe in no one else did he confide as he confided in me while we were fellow-prisoners, and maybe he did so only because he knew that I was an avowed enemy of Mahdieh, that I was at the time defying the Khaleefa to do his worst against me, and that my interests lay elsewhere than in the Soudan. There was also a lurking suspicion that I had been sent up as a Government emissary, and that the letter of General Stephenson was purposely couched in the language it was, so that, if it fell into the hands of the Khaleefa, he would be led to believe that I had started upon a trading expedition pure and simple. The friendship formed during the two or three months, which Adlan and I spent as fellow-prisoners, was to end in the not least interesting of my experiences, but it also ended in a tragedy.

Wad Adlan, prior to the Mahdist revolt, had been