When the food was ready, I invited my guards to eat it. I was hoping that a full meal, especially as their fatigue was very evident, would induce them to sleep, and feigning drowsiness myself, moved off a few yards, and scooped out a sand bed. I was prepared to risk anything for liberty; we were in the neighbourhood of the wells, and might travel for days without being out of reach of water. Explaining my plans to Hasseena, I told her, under the pretence of collecting firewood, to try and get up to Amin and Elias, cut their thongs with the large knife we had had to cut up the meat sent us for food, and tell them to creep towards a small tree which I had noticed during daylight, and await me there. Some camels with their feet fastened by ropes were grazing there, and I believed that we might get away unobserved, and get some hours’ start. But the guards of the prisoners were not asleep; they were very much awake, searching the prisoners for any valuables, an operation which was carried out by each relief of guards, so that the sun rose with us still in the hands of the dervishes.
[Illustration: THE KHALEEFA’S EUNUCHS AT ATTENTION.]
It was just after sunrise that we moved off again; my guardian must have been impressed with my importance, for he saddled the camel for me himself, and |37| brought me a gourd of camel’s milk. During this day’s journey, the Emir Mohammad Hamza, of the Jaalin tribe, who was commanding a section of the dervishes, rode up to me and inquired about my health—the usual form of salutation. He told me not to be afraid of any harm coming to me, and then rode off again. That evening we arrived at a small encampment of dervishes close to some wells, when I was taken before another Emir whom I was told was Makin en Nur, and who, from the deference paid him by the others, was doubtless the chief. He, too, put a few questions to me of the same commonplace nature as the others, and waved his hand for me to be removed. On being sent for again, I was accused of being a Government spy, and asked what I had to say for myself. I replied, “I have told you the truth; what do you want me to do now? tell you a lie, and say I _am_ a spy? If I do so you will kill me for saying I am one, and if I say again I am _not_, you will not believe me, and kill me just the same. I am not afraid of you; do as you please.” When he questioned me again, I said, “I refuse to answer any more questions.” My manner of speaking to them caused no little surprise, as it was doubtless different to what they had expected, and to what they had formerly experienced from captives.