Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/85

Rh the pay of Wad Nejoumi. He related to each side just sufficient to keep himself in constant good grace and pay, and failing authentic news of any description, he was able to fall back upon his intimate local knowledge, his double dealings, his knowledge of the people and language, and a fund of plausibility which at the present day would not pass current for five minutes.

Between the Dar Hamad section, and the section acknowledging Saleh Bey Wad Salem as their head, there were a number of old outstanding jealousies which had not been settled; what they were all about I cannot pretend to say, but one of the principal was, whether Sheikh Saleh or the head of the Dar Hamads should be considered the senior. It may not have been forgotten by those who have taken an interest in Soudan affairs, that the existence of these tribal jealousies and disputes between divided tribes was taken full advantage of by the Mahdi and Khaleefa, in very much the same way as a political agent runs one section of a party against another, and gains his point, at the cost and discomfiture of the others who, for the time being, were unconsciously playing his game for him. Sheikh Saleh's party were the real Bedawi (men of the desert), and, therefore, more reliable than the Dar Hamads, who had the "belladi" (town) taint or stigma attached to them.

Gabou's first plan was, according to his lights, to act loyal to his section of the tribe, and so to arrange matters that the arms intended for his rivals, Sheikh Saleh's section, should fall into the hands of his people; with those arms turned against the