Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/97

Rh questions about the Government, the fortifications of Cairo and Alexandria, Assouan, Korosko and Wadi Halfa, and in particular he was anxious to know all about the British army and "Ingleterra." The advance up the Nile for the relief of Gordon had evidently given him a very poor opinion of our means of transport, at least as regards rapidity of movement, for when I told him of the distance between Alexandria and England, and assured him that steamers could bring in a large army in a week's time, he smiled and said, "I am not a child, to tell me a tale like that." He may or may not have gone to his grave believing that I was romancing, when I described to him what an ocean-going steamer was like, and did my best to give him some idea of the proportions of a Nile Dahabieh compared with an ocean-going steamer and a man-of-war.

I left him firmly impressed with the idea, and this impression was only intensified months later when a number of his chief men were ordered back to Omdurman and thrown into prison with me, that had Nejoumi had any one in whom he could repose his confidence and absolute trust in such a delicate matter, he would have sent in his submission to the Government, and laying hands upon the Emirs sent by the Khaleefa to spy upon him — for he was then under suspicion — would have led his army as "friendlies" to Wadi Halfa, and have asked assistance to enable him to turn the tables on the Khaleefa. What further leads me to make such a bold assertion or statement is that the Emirs, or chief men, referred to already as having