In the end, I drove home my point by falling into figurative language, a means of argument as general and effective in the East now as it was in ancient days. “Adlan,” I said, “you have been feeding Abdullahi on his own flesh; he is sick, but he is hungry; you have cut all the flesh from his bones; if you try to feed him on his bones, he will kill you, for he wants flesh to eat; you must cut flesh from some one else to feed him, and cover his bones again.” Adlan then jumped at the idea of trading, and said that as soon as his release came—for he felt sure he would be released—he would ask the Khaleefa to release me so that I might assist him in the work. The first essential, though, he told me, was to abandon my present attitude towards Mahdieh, and offer to become a Muslim. |151| I agreed to do so, and Adlan reported to the Saier, who in turn reported to the Kadi, that I was willing to embrace the faith. “What,” said the Kadi, “Abdalla Nufell a Muslim? No, his heart is the old black one; he is not with us; he is deceiving; his brain (head) is still strong; he is a deceiver; tell him so from me.” The Kadi had not forgotten my old discussions with him in the presence of others, where he perhaps had the worst of it, and would not forgive me. Failing my “conversion,” he knew that I should have to suffer the tortures of the Saier, and he intended that I should suffer them. Soon after this, Adlan was released and reinstated in his old post; but he sent word that I must be patient, as he could not speak to the Khaleefa about me until he had got back fully into favour. I should have mentioned before, that on the Khaleefa asking for designs for the proposed tomb of the Mahdi, Kadi Hanafi and others suggested that I should prepare designs in the hope they would be accepted, when I should have to be released to see to their execution. Remembering the old tombs of the Khaliffs at Cairo, I had little difficulty in drawing a rough sketch of one, which I had submitted to Abdullah, as being an entirely original design. I was told by the Saier to make a clay model, and spent some three weeks in making one about two feet high. Hundreds came to see it, until it was knocked to pieces by a presumed fanatic, who objected to a dog of an unbeliever designing the tomb of the holy man; but from what I learned later, it was only kicked to |152| pieces after it had been copied. Adlan, knowing of this incident, sent me word to prepare designs for the mural decorations of the interior, and I spent some weeks over these; when they were finished, I sent them direct to the Khaleefa, who sent for Adlan, and told him to make inquiries as to how long the transfer of the designs to the walls would take, and how much the work would cost. I gave an estimate of sixty days for the completion of the work. Adlan said the cost would be nil, as he had the paint.