At about ten o’clock the next day they returned, and suggested that all should come to the right bank and pack up their effects, to be ready for the camels when they arrived. About two hours after mid-day, while all were either seated on the bank or fastening up their effects, a man came, said that the Sheikh-el-Belad had arrived, and invited the “Pasha” and the Consuls to his house. Colonel Stewart ordered Hassan Bey to accompany him as interpreter. On reaching the reception-room, they found about forty or fifty people assembled to receive them. The Sheikh-el-Belad was seated in the centre of the room on the left. Two angareebs were placed at each side of the doorway: Stewart and Power seated themselves on the |330| angareeb on the right, and Hassan Bey and Herbin on the angareeb to the left. Some minutes were taken up in the usual salutations, and before they had time to speak about the journey, the natives rose, and, saying the camels were approaching, left the room, only to rush back a few minutes later shouting, “Salaamoo tisslaamoo ya kaffarah” (“Become Muslims, you infidels, and you will be spared”); but at the same moment Herbin had his head smashed in with an axe, and Hassan Bey was stabbed in the right arm with a crease knife, and, as he was falling, received a large spear wound in the left leg. He fell unconscious, and did not see how Stewart and Power were killed. While the bodies were being dragged out of the room, some time after sunset, Hassan Bey was found to be still alive; it was proposed to kill him, but the brother of the Sheikh-el-Belad, he heard afterwards, pleaded for him, as his “stomach felt sick.” After the murder of Stewart and the others, the party made their way to the river, and a long fight ensued between them and the crew of the vessel, the latter being killed to a man. Hassan Bey was given some engine-oil from the steamer with which to dress his wounds, and, when he recovered, was sent to attend the flocks of the tribe. About fifty to sixty days later, he was sent to Berber on the orders of Mohammad-el-Kheir, and there imprisoned for four months, and, on the death of the Mahdi, was, with other prisoners, sent to Omdurman, to take the oath of allegiance to Khaleefa Abdullahi.