thorny little fences separated these huts from eachother and from the streets. Here and there could be seen tents,evidently captured from the Egyptians. Elsewhere a few palm mats undera piece of dirty linen stretched upon bamboo constituted the entireresidence. The population sought shelter under the roofs during rain orexceptional heat; for the rest they passed their time, built fires,cooked food, lived, and died out-of-doors. So the streets were socrowded that in places the detachment with difficulty forced its waythrough the multitude. Formerly Omdurman was a wretched village; atpresent, counting the ives, over two hundred thousand people werehuddled in it. Even the Mahdi and his caliphs were perturbed by thisvast concourse, which was threatened with famine and disease. Theycontinually despatched to the north expeditions to subjugate localitiesand cities, loyal yet to the Egyptian Government.
At the sight of the white children here also resounded unfriendlycries, but at least the rabble did not threaten with death. It may bethat they did not dare to, being so close to the prophet's side, andperhaps because they were more accustomed to the sight of prisoners whowere all transported to Omdurman immediately after the capture ofKhartum. Stas and Nell, however, saw hell on earth. They saw Europeansand Egyptians lashed with courbashes until they bled; hungry, thirsty,bending under burdens which they were commanded to carry or underbuckets of water. They saw European women and children, who were rearedin affluence, at present begging for a handful of durra or a shred ofmeat; covered with rags, emaciated, resembling specters, with facesswarthy from want, on which dismay and despair had settled, and with abewildered stare. They saw how the savages burst into laughter at thesight of these unfortunates; how they pushed and beat them. On all thestreets and alleyways there were not lacking sights from which the eyesturned away with horror and aversion. In Omdurman, dysentery andtyphoid fever, and, above all, small-pox raged in a virulent form. Thesick, covered with sores, lay at the entrances of the hovels, infectingthe air. The prisoners carried, wrapped in linen, the bodies of thenewly dead to bury them in the sand beyond the city, where the realcharge of the funeral was assumed by hyenas. Above the city hoveredflocks of vultures from whose wings fell melancholy shadows upon theilluminated sand. Stas, witnessing all this, thought that the best forhim and Nell would be to die as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, in this sea of human wretchedness and malice therebloomed at times compassion, as a pale flower blooms in a putrid marsh.In Omdurman there were a few Greeks and Copts whom the Mahdi had sparedbecause he needed them. These not only walked about freely, but engagedin trade and various affairs, and some, especially those who pretendedto change their faith, were even officers of the Mahdi, and this gavethem considerable importance among the wild dervishes. One of theseGreeks stopped the detachment and began to question the children as tohow they happened to be there. Learning with amazement that they hadjust arrived, and that they had been kidnapped from far-away Fayum, hepromised to speak about them to the Mahdi and to inquire about them inthe future. In the meantime he nodded his head compassionately at Nelland gave to each a few handfuls of dried wild figs and a silver dollarwith an image of Maria Theresa. After which he admonished the soldiersnot to dare to do any harm to the little girl, and he left, repeatingin English: "Poor little bird!"
XVII
Through tortuous little streets they finally arrived at themarket-place which was situated in the center of the city. On the waythey saw many men with a hand or foot cut off. They were thieves ortransgressors who had concealed booty. The punishment meted by thecaliphs for disobedience or violation of the laws promulgated by theprophet was horrible, and even for a trivial offense, such as smokingtobacco, the delinquent was whipped with courbashes until he bled orbecame unconscious. But the caliphs themselves observed these commandsonly seemingly; at home they indulged in everything, so that thepenalties fell upon the poor, who at one blow were despoiled of alltheir goods. Afterwards there remained for them nothing to do but beg;and as in Omdurman there was a scarcity of provisions they died ofstarvation.
A large number of beggars also swarmed around the provision stalls. Thefirst object, however, which attracted the attention of the childrenwas a human head fastened on a high bamboo set up in the center of themarket-place. The face of this head was dried up and almost black,while the hair on the skull and the chin was as white as milk. One ofthe soldiers explained to Idris that that was Gordon's head. Stas, whenhe heard this, was seized by fathomless sorrow, indignation, and aburning desire for revenge; at the same time terror froze the blood inhis veins. Thus had perished that hero, that knight without fear andwithout reproach; a man, just and kind, who was loved even in theSudan. And the English people had not come in time to his aid, andlater retired, leaving his remains without a Christian burial, to bethus dishonored! Stas at that moment lost his faith in the Englishpeople. Heretofore he naively believed that England, for an injury toone of her citizens, was always ready to declare war against the wholeworld. At the bottom of his soul there had lain a hope that in behalfof Rawlinson's daughter, after the unsuccessful pursuit, formidableEnglish hosts would be set in motion even as far as Khartum andfarther. Now he became convinced that Khartum and that whole region wasin the hands of the Mahdi, and that the Egyptian Government and Englandwere thinking rather of preserving Egypt from further conquests than ofdelivering the European prisoners from captivity.
He understood that he and Nell had fallen into an abyss from whichthere was no escape, and these thoughts, linked with the horrors whichhe witnessed on the streets of Omdurman, disheartened him completely.His customary energy gave way to total passive submission to fate and adread of the future. In the meantime he began aimlessly to gaze aboutthe market-place and at the stalls at which Idris was bargaining forprovisions. The hucksters, mainly Sudanese women and negresses, soldjubhas here, that is, white linen gowns, pieced together with manycolored patches, acacia gum, hollow gourds, glass beads, sulphur andall kinds of mats. There were a few stalls with provisions and aroundall of them the throng pressed. The Mahdists bought at high pricesprincipally dried strips of meat of domestic animals; likewise ofbuffaloes, antelopes and giraffes. Dates, figs, manioc, and durra weretotally lacking. They sold here and there water and honey of wild bees,and grains of dochnu soaked in a decoction of tamarind fruit. Idrisfell into despair, for it appeared that in view of the prevailingmarket-prices he would soon exhaust all the money he had received fromFatma Smain for living expenses and afterwards would, in allprobability, have to beg. His only hope now was in Smain, and strangelyenough Stas also relied solely upon Smain's assistance.
After a lapse of an hour Nur el-Tadhil returned from the caliphAbdullahi. Evidently he had met with some kind of disagreeable mishapthere, for he returned in a bad humor. So when Idris asked him if hehad learned anything about Smain, he replied testily:
"Fool, do you think that the caliph and I have nothing better to dothan to seek Smain for you?"
"Well, what are you going to do with me?"
"Do what you please. I gave you a night's lodging in my house and a fewwords of good advice, and now I do not want to know anything more aboutyou."
"That is well, but where shall I find shelter?"
"It is all the same to me."
Saying this he took the soldiers and went away. With great difficultyIdris prevailed upon him to send to the market-place the camels and therest of the caravan, including those Arabs who had joined it betweenAssuan and Wadi Haifa. These people did not come until the afternoon,and it appeared that none of them knew what they were going to do. Thetwo Bedouins began to quarrel with Idris and Gebhr, claiming that theyhad promised them an entirely different reception and that they hadcheated them. After a long dispute and much deliberation they finallydecided to erect at the outskirts of the city huts of dochnu boughs andreeds as shelter during the night, and for the rest to depend upon thewill of providence, and wait.
After the erection of the huts, which employment does not require muchtime from Sudanese and negroes, all, excepting Chamis, who was toprep
are the supper, repaired to the place of public prayer. It was easyfor them to find it, as the swarm of all Omdurman was bound thither.The place was spacious, encircled partly by a thorny fence and partlyby a clay enclosure which was being built. In the center stood a woodenplatform. The prophet ascended it whenever he desired to instruct thepeople. In front of the platform were spread upon the ground sheephides for the Mahdi, the caliphs, and eminent sheiks. Planted at thesides were the flags of emirs, which fluttered in the air, displayingall colors and looking like great flowers. The four sides weresurrounded by the compact ranks of dervishes. Around could be seen abold, numberless forest of spears, with which almost all the warriorswere armed.
It was real good fortune for Idris and Gebhr, and for the other membersof the caravan, that they were taken for a retinue of one of the emirs.For that reason they could press forward to the first rows of theassembled throng. The