Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/272

218 and this spoiled all, I was never to be allowed to sleep out in the open, and must pass my nights in the Umm Hagar.

I have already described a night in this "Black Hole of Calcutta," but it might not be out of place to try and give a slight description of the first night Ibrahim Pasha Fauzi — one of Gordon's favourite officers — spent in that inferno, especially as he wishes me to do so. When taken to the anvil, as I have already remarked, Fauzi broke down completely, was carried off in a swoon to the Umm Hagar, placed sitting with his back in the angle of the wall furthest from the door, and there left — as I was, to "come round." When the first batch of prisoners was driven in at sunset, there was room for all to lie down on the foul and saturated ground. When the second batch was driven in about an hour and a half later, those lying down had to sit up with the new-comers, and Fauzi's outstretched legs gave a dry and comfortable seat to four big Soudanese. I was driven in with the third batch after the night prayers, and then all in the Umm Hagar had to stand up or be trampled on. Fauzi, still suffering from the effects of the shell wound he received in-one of the sorties from Khartoum, with four people sitting or standing on him, and being heavily chained as well, was unable to rise to his feet. I could hear him from my place near the door feebly expostulating with the people who were standing upon him; I thought that maybe he was being trampled to death, and in my then frenzied state commenced to fight my way towards him, striking friend and foe