Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1885-02-25
THE FALSE PROPHETS CHIEF AID.

One night in May, eleven years ago, in 9
dingy back room of al old brick house il
Wooster street, met a young Frenchman
who even then had played part which
doubtless had prepared him for the extraor'
dinary adventure in which he is now engag-
ed. He was amid q group OF his friends
and had just reached this city as q refugee.
He had been an actor in the Paris revolt oil
March, 1871 he had escaped the massacre
that followed the suppression of the Com
mune; he had afterward been arrested and
condemned to death; his punishment had
been changed to that of banishment to the
penal colony of New Caledonia in the Pa.
cifc; he had there, with a few companions,
got up daring plan to escape; they had
carried out that plan amid dangers as great
as ever were encountered ; and in May of
ed in San Francisco, from which Mr.. Olivier
Pain fastened to New York, where he spent
a few days prior to his departure for Eng
land as place of safety.
When here he looked about thirty years
of age, and was tall, 1.-the and handsome,
possessed of both the vivacity and the
gravity of an experienced worldlng of
Paris. He had done duty on the press as
an assailant of the Empire; he had done
service in the field during the Franco. Ger
man war, and subsequently during the re-
volt of Paris he had suffered the hardships
of French convict life, and was them in full
flight from one kind of peril to another: !:
but, withal, he demeaned himself as though
his resources had not yet been tested.
Well, according to the cable dispatches,
this young Frenchman, Mr. Olivier Pain,
has for the past year been the military ad.
wiser of the False Prophet" who is now
leading his wild hordes of Arabian spear
men against the British invaders of Egypt
and the Soudan and it is this same French
man who led the storming party that cap
tured Khartoum and put an end to the ca
reer of Gen. Gordon. 1t is long distance
from Paris to New Caledonia, and from
Wooster street to the Soudan, and Mr.. Pain
has measured it; it is queer change from
convict and fugitive to his present rank in
the host of the Faithful but he has un-
dergone it. As far back as last year the
dispatches told of mysterious French
man who was reported to be in the Arab
camp, and who was high in the confidence
of El Mahdi; but it was not till last Janu
ary that we were assured of Mr.. Pains
being in command of 5000 Of the Mahdi's
troops at Metemneh; now we have the
news of his victory at Khartoum. under
which the British government is reeliug.
Mr.. Pain had a varied experience after
leaving New York. He went to London,
and next to Geneva, where he was concern
ed in several newspaper ventures. When
the Turco. Russian war broke out he enter
ed the Turkish service, was captured by
the Russians, aud condemned to death as u
spy; but the sentence was not executed,
and be got out of prison in time to return
to France and TO Partisan journalism under
the amnesty of 1880. 1t was as correspon-
dent that he penetrated to the camp of Ell
Mahdi, where his knowledge of the art of
war brought him to the front The English
papers have given notice that he will be
hanged as soon as Lord Wolseley gets hold
of him.-John Swinton's Paper.