In the last chapter I remarked that I would later offer some surmises as to the reason why my guide Amin was the first to be executed at Dongola, and it would be well to insert them here, while speaking of my fellow-prisoners from Nejoumi’s army. Though they could not be positive on the point, they were certain that Amin’s two or three passages-at-arms with the guide Hassan had been related to the assembled Emirs at Dongola immediately after our arrival, and Amin was in consequence ordered to be at once executed. I expressed my suspicions as to the actual death of Hassan at El Kab, and in face of what I was told, I cannot help but believe that his falling from the camel was an arranged affair, and that he came with the caravan to Dongola, and gave evidence against Amin. Following up this suspicion or supposition, it is very probable that he originated the “cock-and-bull” story related to the military authorities, |68| detailing the supposed incidents of the capture of Saleh’s caravan and myself. It will not have been forgotten that the published official and semi-official records report my capture at two different places a hundred and fifty miles apart, or, in other words, a minimum of five days’ journey, and at different dates,—in one instance announcing my arrival at Omdurman as a captive one month before the caravan which I was supposed to have betrayed—or been the cause of the capture of through “imprudence”—had even started from Wadi Halfa. In the early morning of April 28, I and Hasseena were taken outside the town to where the guards and camels were awaiting us, and setting off on our journey, travelled through Hannak, Debbeh, Abou Gussi, and Ambukol. The incidents connected with our appearance at these places are not of sufficient interest to warrant my detaining my readers with them. From Ambukol we struck into the desert, making for the Nile at Gebel Roiyan, enduring the inevitable discomforts and privations of such a journey. On arrival at the village near Gebel Roiyan, we took possession of what we believed to be a deserted house, and, after taking a little food, lay down to sleep. During the night a wretched old woman crept into my room, and commenced that peculiar wailing known to those who have been in the East. She was, she said, “El umm Khashm-el-Mus” (the mother of Khashm-el-Mus—but the expression may be taken to imply merely that she was one of Khashm-el-Mus’s family or relatives), whom Gordon had sent with gunboats to Metemmeh to |69| accompany Sir Charles Wilson on his voyage to Khartoum. Her sons, the whole of her family (or tribe), had been killed by the Khaleefa’s order, and, as far as she knew, she was the only one left. Taking no notice of my guards, who had come in, attracted by the wailing and talking, she cursed the Mahdi, and every thing and every one connected with him. The wailings of the poor creature, her pinched, sunken cheeks, her glistening eyes, her skinny, hooked fingers, her vehement