Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/295

Rh was to lift and let fall the pulverizers, and then it was discovered that the machine could not be made to my dimensions. I knew this when I designed it, but I had hoped. that some one would have been sent south to try and find trees large enough to provide the beams, and so delay would be assured. Osta Abdallah and Khaleel Hassanein, jealous maybe of me, and fearing that their positions were in danger of being taken by myself, went to the Khaleefa, and told him that, in their opinion, I was only "fooling" with him. They also suggested that Awwad-el-Mardi was a friend of the Government, and was helping me on this account; but Yacoub, who was present, supported me. In the course of the interview, the Khaleefa said he had heard that in my country women and children made cartridges with machines, and as I must know all about it, I was to make him such a machine while the powder-mill was being constructed.

For ten years I had been so chained and weighted with iron that it was only with effort I was able to raise my feet from the ground in order to shuffle from place to place; the bars of iron connected with the anklets had limited the stride or shuffle to about ten or twelve inches. When freed from all this, I ran and jumped about the whole day long like one possessed; but the sudden call upon muscles so long unused resulted in a swelling of the legs from hips to ankles, and this was accompanied with most excruciating pains. I had just got the drawings ready for the cartridge-machine when I was compelled to lie up. This gave Osta Abdallah and Hassanein another was to lift and let fall the pulverizers, and then it was discovered that the machine could not be made to my dimensions. I knew this when I designed it, but I had hoped. that some one would have been sent south to try and find trees large enough to provide the beams, and so delay would be assured. Osta Abdallah and Khaleel Hassanein, jealous maybe of me, and fearing that their positions were in danger of being taken by myself, went to the Khaleefa, and told him that, in their opinion, I was only “fooling” with him. They also suggested that Awwad-el-Mardi was a friend of the Government, and was helping me on this account; but Yacoub, who was present, supported me. In the course of the interview, the Khaleefa said he had heard that in my country women and children made cartridges with machines, and as I must know all about it, I was to make him such a machine while the powder-mill was being constructed.

For ten years I had been so chained and weighted with iron that it was only with effort I was able to raise my feet from the ground in order to shuffle from place to place; the bars of iron connected with the anklets had limited the stride or shuffle to about ten or twelve inches. When freed from all this, I ran and jumped about the whole day long like one possessed; but the sudden call upon muscles so long unused resulted in a swelling of the legs from hips to ankles, and this was accompanied with most excruciating pains. I had just got the drawings ready for the cartridge-machine when I was compelled to lie up. This gave Osta Abdallah and Hassanein another