Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/328

262 as he was not seen again; but the two others reached the British lines, delivered the messages, and said that they would be confirmed by Worrak, who they then thought must have been carried by the current to the east bank of the Nile. These were the last messengers I actually sent off.

One of the Saier gaolers had worked himself into a state of frenzied excitement in describing, for the edification of the prisoners — and mine in particular, the coming destruction of the infidels. He gloated over the time when the principal officers — their eyes gouged out to prevent their looking upon the benign face of his master, would be brought into the Saier, and there baited for the amusement of the populace. How little the Sirdar thought, on that September evening, that one of the gaolers grovelling at his feet had, but a few days previously, looked forward to the time when he, blinded and shackled, would be lashed round the place, and, with the rest of my "brothers," spend the nights in the "Umm Hagar." This gaoler, in his mad enthusiasm, rushed at me, and nearly succeeded in gouging out my left eye. There was a struggle, and getting up almost breathless, and certainly driven to desperation, I turned stupidly round, and prophesied, for his edification this time, that the destruction he had predicted for my "brothers" was the destruction which was to fall upon Mahdieh.

It was fortunate for me that, for a few days previous, Idris es Saier had been sending for me, under one pretext and another, and asking what action he should