Early the next morning Nejoumi sent for me, and upon arriving at his enclosure, I saw that he had a number of Sheikh Saleh’s men under examination. I learned later that some had admitted that I was once in Government employ, and had fought against the Mahdi, but that now I was a merchant only. There were, of course, numbers in the town who remembered |47| me in connection with the expedition, and in order to curry favour, they were not averse to credit me with exploits and prowess which, if related to and believed in by the British authorities, would have placed me upon an unearned pedestal. In this instance they were related in the hope that I should be placed on the now well-known “angareeb,” which in a few seconds would be drawn away, leaving me suspended by the neck. When my turn for interrogation came, my letter-wallet was handed to Nejoumi; he had, no doubt, had the contents examined the night before. His first question was, “Which are the Government papers?” I declared that there were none, and that all the papers were business ones. He then inquired, “Are there no papers from the friends of the Government?”—to which I answered, “There may be; I am a merchant; I buy gum, hides—anything from the Soudan, and sell them again to any one else who will buy them from me. It is ‘khullo zai baadoo’ (all the same) to me who the people are—friends or enemies of the Government—provided they pay me. I gave good money for what I bought, and wanted good money for what I sold.” Nejoumi then told me that he had had the letters translated by a girl educated in the “Kanneesa” (church) of Khartoum. General Stephenson’s letter had been translated as a “firman” appointing me the “Pasha” of the Western Soudan, with orders to wage war on the dervishes, for which purpose I had been provided with money, rifles, and ammunition, and about forty or fifty men as my personal bodyguard.