"This is the doctrine of the Mahdi, and it will end as it ended before, in destruction and desolation—let us put it down before the storm breaks." But others said— "It is the Gospel of Christ—what the dickens are we to do with it?" Meantime Ishmael’s own people had begun to see him not as a poet, a dreamer, but as a prophet with a mighty mission. In moments of rapture he told them of a new order that was coming, a great day when all the religions of the world would be united, when all faiths would be one faith, all races one race, all nations one nation, when East and West would be one world, and there would be only one God in it, one King and one Law. They saw him with tears in his eyes looking over the desert as he foretold the conquest of the world for God, and listening eagerly to his predictions of a better and happier day, they began to see something God-like in himself, to regard him as a God-inspired man, a man sent down from the skies with a message. "Our souls lie beneath his sheepskin," they would say, and then they would tell each other stories of supernatural appearances that surrounded the new prophet—how while he preached celestial lights floated about his head, and when he rode on his milk-white camel into the desert of an afternoon, as it was his habit to do, flights of angels were seen to descend and attend him. The creation of this kind of myth led to trouble, for among Ishmael’s secret enemies were certain of the Ulema of Khartoum, who, jealous of his great influence with the people, and suspecting him of an attempt to change the immutable law of Islam, conceived the trick of getting him to avow himself as a re-incarnation of the Mahdi in order that they might betray him to the Government. So three of the meanest of them came one morning to old Mahmud’s house, and sitting in the guest-room, under its thatch of corn-stalks, began to flatter Ishmael and say— "From the moment we beheld thee we knew that thou wert the messenger of God—the Expected One." "Yes, indeed, Mohammed Ahmed is dead but Ishmael Ameer is alive!" Ishmael listened to them for a moment in silence, and then with a flash of fire out of his big eyes he clapped his hands and cried— "Zogal! Abdullah! Turn these men out of the house," and in another moment his two black giants had swept out the spies like rats. But the crowds continued to come to Khartoum from north, south, east and west, and at length, in fear that many might die of want, the Governor of the city went up to Ishmael and said— "Send these people back to their homes or they’ll die of starvation." Whereupon Ishmael looked at him and answered— "Colonel, you are a Christian, and when your Divine Master was on earth a great multitude came to Him in a desert place, and His disciples said, ’Send these people away that they may return to their villages and buy themselves food.’ And then your Master answered them, ’They need not depart. Give ye them to eat.’"