When he had gone, a few of my friends asked why I did not offer to assist him, and even if the thing was a failure, they thought I was clever enough to find something else to do; but, as they said, “promise anything provided it gets you out of the Saier.” There were excellent reasons, but which I might not confide to them, why any work I undertook to do should occupy months, and, if necessary, years in completion. To offer to assist Nahoum in extracting gold and silver from such stones meant that two or three weeks at the outside would evidence our failure to do so, and then it was Saier again for me. Whether any work I undertook to do for the Khaleefa was to end in success or failure was immaterial to me; but it was very material that the result, whatever it was to be, should not be attained for months, as by the time my guides returned, the conditions surrounding my escape might have so changed as to necessitate an entire change in plans and programme. They might even entail the guides’ return to Cairo or the frontier, and this occupied months. But the advice to accept Nahoum’s proposals and trust |228| to luck for discovering some other excuse for remaining out of the Saier when failure could no longer be concealed, appealed to me, and, in reply to my offer of assistance, a messenger came from the Khaleefa ordering the Saier to hand me over to the director of the Beit-el-Mal. His other instructions were that the bars and heavy chains were to be taken off my feet and legs, and that I was to be secured by a single pair of anklets connected with a light chain. While this change was being made I received the congratulations of the gaolers and prisoners, and (February, 1896) was escorted out of the prison by two guards to enter upon a new industry which had in it as much of the elements of success as would accompany an attempt to squeeze blood out of a cobbler’s lap-stone. I had not forgotten Shwybo’s fate.