The war material, just as it had been left by Gordon in the Mission house, was still there, and it happened that one day some powder was stolen. In spite of the most careful inquiries, it was impossible to trace the thief, and now the ex-gardener began to throw out hints that Polinari was implicated in the theft. A certain Hajji Zubeir was entrusted with the inquiry. Polinari's hut was overhauled, but nothing found in it; his honesty was so well known that no one would credit any evil reports or slander against him. But the ex-gardener was not to be put off. Having failed in his first accusation, he now began to spread reports that Polinari drank liquor and chewed tobacco, and in proof of this he produced a large glass bottle and some dried herbs; there were some fresh dates in the bottle, with which Polinari intended making vinegar, which the gardener insisted was liquor; the dried vegetable was a sort of cabbage which Polinari intended cooking for his food, but this the Dongolawi asserted to be tobacco. The unfortunate Polinari was obliged to walk through Omdurman with the bottle on his head, followed by an insulting and disorderly crowd, until he came before the judge. Kadi Ahmed, who was well known for his partiality to Europeans, at once recognised that this was all a trumped-up slander, and was anxious to release Polinari; but Hajji Zubeir, who had still great influence with the Khalifa, and instigated by the ex-gardener, sent him off to the Saier. Every other day we used to send him some bread and dates, but the slave to whom the food had been consigned never delivered it, as we afterwards discovered, and had it not been that two of the sheikhs, who were fellow-prisoners with him, had given him some of their food, he must have died of starvation. Amongst the many Sudanese who have at various times been inmates of the Saier, may be mentioned the aged sheikh of the Shukrieh, who had been most loyal to Gordon, Awad el Kerim Abu Sin--he died in prison; Wad Zaid, of the Debaineh tribe, had been kept in prison four years; then there were Ahmed Wad Suleiman, who had been the Mahdi's chief of the beit el mal; Saleh Pasha Wad el Mek, one of Gordon's principal officers; the Ashraf Sayid Abdel Kader and Sayid Abdel Kerim; Wad Adlan we have already referred to; Jabrallah, Sultan of Darfur, and his five sons, most of whom died; Wad en Nejumi; Sheikh Idris; Makin Wad en Nur, and many others. When the Khalifa's tribe, the Taisha, first arrived, they plundered the market, and Abdullah threw 200 of them into prison, "to teach them," he said, "the right way." Every night fifty of them were driven into the stone hut, which was, indeed, a terrible change from their forests and plains. Every day several died of typhus fever, and now the mere mention of Saier makes them tremble; even their head sheikh, El Ghazali, whose misfortunes I have already narrated, spent some months in prison before he made his unsuccessful attempt to escape.