# A Prisoner of the Khaleefa/Chapter 5

Contents
CHAPTER V
THE REAL HISTORY OF THE CAPTURE
(Extracts.)
"He (Nejoumi) captured in the Oasis of Selima a large part if not the whole of the rifles. This was mainly owing to the imprudence of an enterprising German merchant named Charles Neufeld, who had accompanied the convoy, and, desirous of obtaining a supply of water, had descended to the Oasis, where he was captured by the enemy."
". . . Most of them were killed, and a few, including Neufeld, were taken captive to Dongola; there they were beheaded, with the exception of Neufeld, who was sent to Omdurman, where he arrived on March i, 1887."
March 21, 1887. "Sixty Kabbabish have arrived, sent by their chief to take over arms and money."
May 15, 1887. "Mr. Neufeld is reported to have diverged from caravan of Kabbabishes to Sheikh Saleh to Bakah Wells, and to have been taken prisoner by the dervishes, as well as a few Kabbabish letters are said to have been captured; none from this office were entrusted to him" (Blue Book No. 2, 1888 Nos. 50 and 90).
"Neufeld was now free. His release was owing to one of the Emirs representing to Abdullah Khalifa the great service Neufeld had been in enabling arms and ammunition to be taken from the Kabbabishes at the time Neufeld was captured" (Letter to Mrs. Neufeld from War Office. Cairo, 10.3.90).
​It would be as well to give at once the real history of my capture as regards the circumstances and the arrangements made to effect it. I received the details first from Ahmed Nur Ed Din, who, some months after my capture, came to Omdurman on his own initiative to try and effect my escape. His version was confirmed and amplified by my intended companion Hogal, who again fell into the hands of the dervishes in 1897, and was imprisoned with me until we were finally released a few months ago.
The treachery of Gabou has also been confirmed by Moussa Daoud Kanaga, who has just arrived from the Soudan to meet me, he having heard of my release and arrival at Cairo. Moussa was one of the Soudan merchants with whom I had had many dealings in former days, and believing he could do something towards effecting my escape, he, after many attempts to reach me, finally succeeded in doing so in September, 1889.
Instead of wearying my readers with snatches from one narrative and the other, I will try, combining all, to make one clear and connected story, having for this purpose deleted from the last chapter remarks and questions put to me by Nejoumi at Dongola in order to introduce them here.
The guide I had engaged for the journey, Hassibel-Gabou, belonged to the Dar Hamad section of the Kabbabish tribe which was settled in and around Dongola. Gabou was employed as a spy by the military authorities on the frontier, but there is not the slightest doubt that he was at the same time in ​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 ​dervishes, he might see his section come to the front as the support of the Government, and maybe be in possession of the coveted title of Bey and a Nishan (decoration), if his plans succeeded I have no doubt that, had his first plan succeeded, he would have been prepared with a plausible tale, and gaining any slight advantage over the dervishes would certainly have atoned for his defections His plan as originally conceived was as follows: — First, he wrote to his own sheikh giving him full details of the arms and ammunition awaiting Saleh's caravan, and there is every reason to believe that the letters sent by General Stephenson to Sheikh Saleh in the first instance, were delayed by Gabou until his plans were complete The guide Hassan, whom I believed had been engaged at the last moment, had been engaged some time before, and fully instructed in the part he had to play Gabou had promised his people that after Sheikh Saleh's caravan left El Selima Wells, they would be led towards the Wadi el Kab instead of El] Agia Wells, so that even had we filled our waterskins at leisure at Selima, we should only have been provided with four, instead of eight days' water, and two days on the desert without water has its discomforts When a Bedawi will travel two or three days without water and not murmur, it can be better imagined than described what Gabou's promise to hand us over "thirsty" meant; it meant precisely what actually did occur — the madness of thirst approaching — the lips glued together, the tongue swollen and sore in vain attempts to excite the salivary glands ​— the muscles of the throat contracted, and the palate feeling like a piece of sandstone, the nostrils choked with fine sand, and the eyes reddened and starting, with the eyelids seeming to crack at every movement. Only those who have experienced what we did during those last days on our journey to Wadi el Kab, can fill in the missing details in the history of Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage.
The Dar Hamads, on receiving Gabou's news, made their preparations; arms buried in the ground to conceal them from the dervishes were unearthed, but the very evident activity of the people excited the suspicions of Wad Nejoumi. Believing that a revolt was intended, he prepared to meet it; but, having his spies about, bits of the real truth leaked out. Gabou was put to the test; either written messages or messengers were sent to him by Nejoumi, asking about Saleh's caravan and the purposes for which they had gone to Wadi Halfa. When Gabou saw that his first scheme had miscarried, rather than the caravan should fall into the hands of his rivals, he preferred to reveal to Nejoumi the plot he had planned for the benefit of his own people. It was on this account that he had, as related, tried at one time to get me to abandon the projected journey; and, as can be understood, there were many reasons for his sending word to Nejoumi saying I was to accompany the caravan. His keeping back of Ismail, the leader, day after day, was only to allow of his messages reaching Nejoumi in time for him to make complete preparations for intercepting us.
​Hogal arrived at Wadi Halfa the very evening of our departure, and sent over his message. Gabou met him and gave him his confidence. He told Hogal the means he had used to try and get me to abandon the journey, but that he dared not give me the real reasons, as he knew I should report the matter, and his head would then be in danger; he had done the best he could by letting Nejoumi know who and what I was. Still dexterously playing his cards, and to keep Hogal quiet, he said that he knew that the English were going away; they certainly would not take him with them, and as he and Hogal had their family ties in the Soudan, unless he worked with Nejoumi, his "good word" would be of no avail to his family and friends when the dervishes came down to occupy the abandoned towns.
I trust that my readers are now beginning to see the light through this dark conspiracy, and that I am making the narrative sufficiently intelligible and clear without constantly requesting you to turn back to earlier pages.
Gabou, playing a double part himself, and being naturally suspicious of every one in consequence, thought that I might have divined his treachery when the camels did not overtake us, and might change our route in consequence; these suspicions he communicated to Nejoumi. Had he not done this, I might have forgiven him — for it was every one for himself in those days. There was not the least necessity for him to warn Nejoumi that we might change our route on discovering that the guide was leading ​us in the wrong direction, for had Nejoumi's men not found us, Gabou would not have been blamed.
Nejoumi, on receiving the news, despatched a large number of dervishes under Wad Bessir to Umbellila, opposite Abou Gussi, and another under Osman Azrak to El Kab opposite to El Ordeh (Dongola), and Said Mohammad Wad Farag, Mohammad Hamza, Makin en Nur and Wad Umar to the various wells in the Wadi el Kab, the latter having orders to keep the Dar Hamads in check. I am giving this list of now famous names from recollections of what I was told at Dongola and Omdurman, not for the purpose of thereby investing with a halo of barbaric romance an incident which was nothing more nor less than a bit of highway robbery, but more with the idea, that should any of those named be still living, and eventually come into the hands of the Government, they might be questioned as to this affair, and their account compared with the series of contradictory passages which head the present chapter.
Wad Farag sent a flying party to Selima Wells, led by a slave of Wad Eysawee, named Hassib Allah. It was Hassib Allah who had fired the shot we heard on the day of our arrival at Selima. When taken before Wad Nejoumi at Dongola, one of the questions put me was, "Did you see any one, or hear a shot fired the day you reached Selima," to which I answered "Yes," as regards the latter part of the question, thereby making an everlasting friend of Hassib Allah, as a reward had been promised to whoever should first sight us and hurry back to the main body with the news; ​he had fired the shot, so that the question might be put. Even in this you may gauge the amount of faith or confidence the Ansar had in the word of their Emirs, and the amount of credence a European might give to their tales when they lied to, and deceived each other with such charming impartiality.
After despatching Hassib, Wad Farag divided his party, sending one to the district between Wadi el Kab and the Nile, and the second, commanded by himself, he led to the desert to intercept us. The Alighat Arab sent out as a scout, who did not return, must have either been captured by Farag, or what is more likely, as he was sent out by Hassan, was an emissary of Hassan's to Wad Farag or any of the other dervishes to give them the news, as Hassan must have been aware of our position and the proximity of the dervishes. The tracks we had picked up on the road, when the embers of the caravan's fires were found still hot, were the remains of the fires of Hassib's men, who had kept within touch of us the whole time, only losing touch on the day following the disappearance of the Alighats.
On reaching the broken ground leading to El Kab, my guide Amin and the two others had been allowed to pass unchallenged intentionally, as the dervish plan was to form themselves into three parties, which were to rush us from three sides at the same moment. It was in direct disobedience of orders that the first shots were fired at us, but it was probably done by some one to gain the promised reward for sighting us, and it ended, as already related, in a general fusilade. The ​camels loaded with filled water-skins were left behind purposely, but their being left was a happy thought at the moment of Farag's men. When they retired, it was only to join the other section which was to have rushed us from the left; the section to rush us in the rear being a little further out in the desert than the plan shows.
Our leader Ismail I never saw or heard of again; he may have succeeded in escaping altogether, only to be killed when the virtual extermination of the tribe took place and Sheikh Saleh, standing on his sheepskin, fell fighting to the last.
This account of the capture of the caravan, and the explanations given, though not agreeing in essentials with the accounts given officially, may be accepted as being as nearly correct in every detail as it is possible for memory to give them, and the occasion was one of those in life where even twelve years' sufferings are not sufficient to obliterate the incidents from the mind.
I feel some little confidence in offering to the world my version of the circumstances attending my departure from Wadi Halfa for Kordofan, the date upon which I really did leave Egypt — as unfortunate a date for me as it evidently has been to some of my biographers, — and the actual circumstances attending my capture, as I happened to be present on the various occasions spoken of, and I do not think it will be asking too much if I request that the same amount of credence be given to my own story as has been given to that of others referred to in my introduction, and in the extracts which head the present chapter.
​It now remains, before closing this chapter, to deal with Dufa'allah Hogal and his part in the affair. In my first letter from Omdurman, which letter was written for me by dictation of the Khaleefa, I am made to say that I blamed Hogal for his deceit, but at the same time thanked him for his deceit, as it had led me to grace. This was a clever invention of the Emir's at Dongola, or the Khaleefa himself, to get Hogal into trouble with the Government, and draw away suspicion from Hassan and Gabou. This letter was received by one of my clerks at Assouan, who fortunately retained a copy before forwarding it on to Cairo; a translation of it will be given later.
Hogal is not to be blamed for keeping his own counsel after Gabou had given him his confidence. He had nothing to gain by telling the authorities the truth, and he had everything to lose if he did. The Khaleefa's spies were everywhere in the Government and out of it, just as the Government spies were amongst the Mahdists, and there can be no doubt but that they were paid by both sides — and who is to blame them? Hogal's family ties and relations were in the Soudan, and there was no use in his raising a question over a dead man. I may have something to say about guides and spies later on, but it will not be with the idea of calling any of them to justice. The only justice they knew of was that contained in "Possession is nine points of the law," or "Might conquers right," and it suited their natures admirably to play a double game, rendered so easy for them with a Khaleefa who, having made up his mind to ​do a certain thing, ever kept that object in view, and worked for its accomplishment, whilst on the other hand was a Government which in their opinion did not seem to know its own mind from one day to another as to what should be done with the Soudan and its subjects resident there.