Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/81

Rh that I had bought her, but, as slaves were not allowed by the Government, I had had to give her a shehaada (certificate) declaring her free. Nejoumi made a present of her to one of the men present, and on this Hasseena squatted on the ground and refused to budge. She screamed to Nejoumi that he might, if he chose, marry her himself, but said that whoever her husband might be, he would die the same night, since she knew how to poison people secretly. She knew nothing whatever about poisons, but this remark probably was the reason for her being sent to the Khaleefa, as she might be useful. She was sent back as "property" to the Beit-el-Mal.

My ordeal was not yet over; other chiefs came in, and the conference opened soon developed intoa heated, if not acrimonious, discussion and dispute. I did not know Soudani sufficiently to follow all that was said, besides which three or four were speaking rapidly at the same time; but I gathered that Nejoumi wished to keep me by him, as he believed that I might be made useful in signing letters which my clerk would have to write. The others, believing the girl's translation of the letter, were for despatching me to the next world, and sending my head as a gruesome present to the commandant at Wadi Halfa, accompanied by the supposed "firman." It is not a pleasant experience to sit down and hear your fate being discussed, conscious that the sentence will be carried out immediately. No criminal ever scanned the face of a jury on its return to court as I did those of my savage captors, with ears strained to catch every familiar