After he had lain for some time with closed eyes, he rose and offered us some more kamar-ed-din, from which he himself began to take out the flies; but finding it absolutely useless to do so, he gave it up, and then went back to his tent, probably to hold a council. After a short time he again returned, wearing a clean jibbeh patched with pieces of the vestments belonging to our Mission church at El Obeid. He then began to recount to us the history of the numerous conversions which had taken place in the early days of the Prophet. Seeing that we took little interest in what he said, he got up and ordered us to be taken before the Khalifa Abdullah (the present ruler of the Sudan), while he himself retired to his own tent. On our arrival at Abdullah's hut, we found ourselves in company with twenty robbers who were chained hand and foot. An enormous crowd stood round, and amongst the faces I noticed some of our Delen friends, who had evidently followed us to see what the end would be. Our guard, armed with Remington rifles, stood around us, and close to us was the Khalifa Abdullah's horse, which always remained saddled--a witness to his unbounded energy. A short distance off, about eighty flags were planted in the ground, and beside them were the war-drums. Hardly had we seated ourselves when the Khalifa Abdullah entered. He was at that time a man of about thirty-three years of age, of middle height, very thin--in fact, little else but skin and bone; he greeted us kindly, and invited us to become Moslems. From his bombastic conversation, we soon saw that he was a man of no education whatever, and he ended up by saying that if we refused to obey we had only death to expect. We were then marched off. On the evening of the 27th of September, when George Stambuli came to tell us that if we did not embrace Islam, we should most certainly die, we gave him no hope that we should change our minds. The Mahdi frequently sent people to teach us the truths of religion, but we soon tired of their nonsensical chattering, and Father Bonomi used to send them away with strong words. Shortly afterwards Abdullah came again, bringing a water-melon with him, and in default of a knife he broke it on the ground; but we refused to take any. Greatly annoyed at this, he went off in a rage, saying that we should be beheaded the following morning.