Hanafi used up all his arguments in trying to persuade me to become a good Muslim. Dilating on the power of the Khaleefa and my impotence, he pointed to my chains, then weighing about forty pounds, and said that the Khaleefa would certainly torture me with them until I submitted to become a good Muslim. To this last argument I replied that if I did say I would be converted, the Khaleefa, as soon as he heard of it, would make me proclaim my conversion publicly, |111| and just as certainly behead me immediately afterwards, to prevent my slipping back into Christianity. Hanafi believed that the Khaleefa would still let me live after embracing the Mohammedan faith in the hope of my accepting the Mahdieh; he failed though to convert me, and the Khaleefa, hearing of the result, and not believing that Hanafi had done all that he might have done with his arguments, for this and other reasons sent him later as a convict to Gebel Ragaf, near Lado, the convict station of the Soudan. By the time I had gained sufficient strength to attempt the flight, the men engaged had lost heart, and there was no one to lead them. Nur ed Din was dead, and as they only came into the thing for the money they were to receive, and the dollars were not then forthcoming, they decided not to run any risk, disbanded the camel-posts, and scattered to their various homes. How many hundreds of times have I regretted since that I did not take Nur ed Din’s advice and escape at the time, leaving him behind. As he said, there was no reason to be afraid that he would lose his head, as his being so ill and also his being left behind would prevent suspicion being directed towards him. During my twelve years’ captivity, this, my first chance of escape, risky and desperate as it was, was the only one which had in it a real element of success, for my conductor in saving me was to save himself.