While in a fever of excitement and anxiety over the despatch of these messengers, Adlan sent me a secret messenger to say that Sulieman Haroun, of the Ababdeh tribe, then living at Omdurman, was sending his son Mohammad Ali to Cairo. Divining that Adlan wished me to communicate with Sulieman, I sent out word that I wished to see him. In a few |154| days’ time he gained admittance to the prison to see me, and I at once set to business, and asked him if he would undertake the arrangements for my escape. This he agreed to do, but only on condition that I succeeded in getting outside the prison walls. So that he should have some confidence that I would assist also, I asked him to call and see Adlan, and I believe it was Adlan who advanced to Sulieman the two hundred dollars he brought me, and for which I gave a receipt for £100. I gave him a letter for his son to deliver to my manager at Assouan, enclosing a receipt for £100, and an order for payment of a further £200. On receiving the money, he was to buy goods, arrange for relays of camels on his return journey, and bring the goods to the Beit-el-Mal, where Adlan assured him he would find me. Mohammad Ali was to leave immediately, and return to Omdurman at the earliest possible moment. [Illustration: MOUSSA DAOUD EL KANAGA.] Within a few days of the despatch of this messenger, Moussa Daoud-el-Kanaga, also of the Ababdeh tribe, and an old acquaintance of mine, came to see me, and I enlisted his services. I told him of the other arrangements I had made, and asked if he would go partners with Mohammad Ali in effecting my escape. To Kanaga I gave a letter telling my manager that I had drawn against him a draft for £200, and instructing him to honour it; but, in case of accidents, I instructed Kanaga to see Mankarious Effendi at Assouan, and, failing to find him, to make his way to Cairo, and hand the letter to the German Consul. Kanaga left Omdurman about December 30, 1888. |155| After my remarks anent the _reliable unreliability_ of every one in the Soudan, the deceptions practised one against the other, and the absolute necessity for secrecy, it will naturally be wondered that I entrusted my secret to so many, if secret it could be called when so many knew of it. The explanation is simple. I _knew_ the people I had to deal with, and have you noticed the seemingly insignificant fact that I _borrowed money from each of the people I employed_? Later in my narrative I will explain these peculiar transactions. While these different messengers are on their journeys, being “held up” at one place or the other, and at others pretending that they were gradually working their way to Berber or Dongola for trade, I relate what is happening in Omdurman.