I and fifteen to twenty others received a hundred and fifty lashes each—at least, I received this number; others repented by crying out after twenty or thirty blows. I alternately clenched my teeth and bit my lips to prevent a sound of pain escaping, often as I was asked, “Will you not cry out? Is your head and heart still like black iron?” and the more they reminded me of the courage I was exhibiting, the more reason I had for not giving way or breaking down. But the mental ordeal was far, far more terrible than |132| the corporal punishment. There was I, a European, a Prussian, a man who had fought with the British troops in what transpired to be the “too late” expedition for the rescue of Gordon, now in the clutches of the tyrant and his myrmidons, whom we had hoped to rescue Gordon from; a white and a Christian—and the only professing Christian—chained and helpless, being flogged by a black, as much a captive and a slave as I was, and yet my superior and master. It is impossible for any one not having undergone a similar experience to appreciate the mental agonies I endured. I may have been self-willed and strong-headed; I may, if you wish, have acted like a fool in my constant defiance of the Khaleefa and the tenets of the Mahdi; but now, looking back on those terrible times, I feel convinced that had poor Gordon lived, my actions would at least have met with his approbation, for the outward ceremony or observance of adherence to the Mohammedan faith was carried out on me under force, after the escape of Rossignoli. Death, in whatever form it came, would have come as a welcome visitor to me; but while doing all in my power to exasperate my captors to kill me, something—hope, courage, a clinging to life, pride in my race, or personal vanity in defying them to the end—restrained me from taking my own life, though Heaven knows that, if ever man had a good excuse for doing so, I had. But my conduct so impressed the Khaleefa that he told Wad Nejoumi, who asked for my release so that I might accompany him to Dongola to “open up trade,” and told many others later, “Neufeld I will |133| not release, but I will not kill him.” Invariably, in speaking of me to others, as I was still unconverted, the Khaleefa omitted the name “Abdalla” which I had been given, and spoke of me as “Nofal”—the Arabic pronunciation of Neufeld. |134| CHAPTER XI A SERIOUS DILEMMA