Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/363

292 engagements towards people whose names I had never heard of. However, these people wrote disclaimers to the Times, saying that they knew nothing of the claims made against me in their names; yet, in spite of the disclaimers, the money was impounded for about five months in all, and then some claims paid from it, but on whose account I am still ignorant.

While all these charges are being levelled at me, I am warned that if I dare contradict anything published formerly concerning myself or Soudan affairs, certain correspondence will be communicated to the London Press; yet what am I to do but contradict them wherever I can find a scrap of evidence to support my contradiction? Surely I cannot be expected to confirm such reports in the face of the threats made verbally and in the columns of a newspaper, especially as I and mine must remain the social outcasts we have been since my release, until my narrative appears. I am writing more in grief than in anger; these are all subjects I should have preferred not to mention in my narrative, and I am touching on them as lightly as is possible, but as others have chosen to publish them, by keeping silence I should be doing myself an injustice. My hand or tongue has been forced, therefore those who have taken the initial action against me must be responsible for the inevitable result which will follow when, questioned as to the foregoing by those entitled to ask for the evidence, I hand over for publication the whole of the correspondence. For the public, having been led to form opinions about me on the strength of the reports and explanations printed, have the right to