Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/283

Rh of mental tension in the Saier of Omdurman. To me ill luck and good luck appeared to be ever striving for the ascendency during my long captivity. Good luck gained in the end — the same good luck which had accompanied the Sirdar throughout his daring campaign to conquer, not only Abdullah, but the Soudan, and which, God grant, may ever accompany him in future campaigns; but the cup-and-ball-catch-and-miss strain was to me terrible. My one prayer was that an end might come. Liberty, of course, I hoped for to the end; but I often discovered myself speculating as to whether it was true or not that those suddenly decapitated by a single blow experienced some seconds of really intellectual consciousness, and wondering to myself whether, when my head was rolled into the dust by the Khaleefa's executioner, there would be time to give one last look of defiance.

Yet when I come to think of it, there was nothing very strange in such contemplations. What soldier or sailor has not often in his quiet moments tried to picture his own death, defiant to the last as he goes down before a more powerful enemy? And, after all, thousands and thousands of men and women in civilized countries are enduring a worse captivity and imprisonment than many did in the Soudan; but they are unfortunate in this — that no one has thrown a halo of romance over their sufferings. My lot was a hard, very hard one, I must admit; but the lot of some other captives was such that thousands in Europe would have been pleased to exchange theirs for it, and would have gained in the exchange.