It was fortunate for me that, for a few days previous, Idris es Saier had been sending for me, under one pretext and another, and asking what action he should |263| take in case the English won the battle. I promised that if he treated me well, I would say “good words” for him; but perhaps Fauzi’s tale made the greatest impression upon him. Fauzi related that when the English took Egypt there was one gaoler at Alexandria and another at Cairo. The gaoler at Cairo treated his prisoners well, and so the English promoted him; the gaoler at Alexandria killed his prisoners, and ran away to another country across the seas, but the English brought him back, and hanged him in his old prison. Knowing that the troops were close, Idris took me under his especial care, for he knew I had sent messages to my “brothers” telling them I was alive, and he feared that if they came and found me dead, they would hang him on the same scaffold with my corpse. Although he warned the gaolers and spies to say that I was mad, and did not know what I had been saying, my little speech by some means got to Yacoub’s ears. I was carefully watched, and no one from outside was allowed to speak to me. I should have been taken out of prison to see the great fight, but I believe that I was the only Christian not called out to the field of battle. I had asked Idris not to remove my chains if I was sent for. I had no wish to be found alive or dead on the field as a practically free man, and, dressed as a dervish, any attempt on my part to escape to the British lines during the fight could only end in my being shot down. The Khaleefa had been sitting for eight days in the mosque in communion with the Prophet and the Mahdi, and it was either on the Tuesday night or |264| Wednesday morning immediately preceding the battle that the decision to move out of town was arrived at. On the Wednesday afternoon a grand parade of all the troops was held on the new parade ground, and, while it was being held, alarming news was brought by Abd-el-Baagi’s messengers. Instead of returning to the town as intended, the Khaleefa set off with the whole army in a north-westerly direction. It was this hurried movement which accounted for the greater part of the arms and ammunition he required being left in the Beit-el-Amana, for Abdullahi had intended distributing the remainder of the rifles only at the last moment, when his troops would have to use them against the infidels in self-defence; he could trust none but his Baggara and Taaishi. Sheikh ed Din, with Yunis, Osman Digna, Khaleefa Shereef, and Ali Wad Helu, moved off first in command of the attacking army of 35,000 rifles and horsemen. Yacoub followed in command of a similar number of spear and swordsmen; in all, the army assembled must have numbered between 75,000 and 80,000 men. As every male had been taken from Omdurman, the Khaleefa issued a hundred rifles to the gaolers with which to shoot down the prisoners in case of trouble.