“So then orders have been given to capture us?”
“In every village, to all the sheiks, and at all military stations. To places that could not be reached by the copper wire along which the orders from Cairo were sent, policemen were ordered to make the announcement that whoever captured you would receive a reward of a thousand pounds. Maschallah! That is a large fortune! A large one!”
Idris looked suspiciously at the speaker.
“And you prefer the blessing of the Mahdi?”
“Yes, and besides, he has captured so much spoil and so much money in Khartum that he shovels out Egyptian pounds by the bagful and divides it among the faithful——”
“But if the Egyptian soldiers are still in Wadi Halfa, and further south, they may capture us on the road.”
“No! But we must be quick, before they get their bearings; for since the English have retreated they all have lost their senses, sheiks loyal to the government as well as the soldiers and police. Every one believes that the Mahdi will appear at any minute, and so those of us who are secretly his followers are fleeing to him; no one hinders us, for there is so much confusion that no one gives orders, and no one knows whom to obey.”
“Yes, that is so!” answered Idris. “But you were right in saying that we must hurry, before they recover their senses, for it is still quite a distance to Khartum——”
Stasch, who had carefully listened to this whole conversation, felt a momentary feeble ray of hope flickering in his heart. If the Egyptian soldiers are still occupying several places in Nubia along the banks of the Nile, then—as the English had taken all the ships with them—they must get beyond reach of the tribes of the Mahdi by going along the road. And in this case it might happen that the caravan would meet the retreating soldiers and be surrounded by them. Stasch also calculated that it would take a much longer time for the news of the capture of Khartum to reach the Arabian tribes living to the north of Wadi Halfa, especially as the Egyptian Government and the English were trying to keep their defeat a secret; so he supposed that the lawlessness that must have taken place at first among the Egyptians must be quite over by this time. It never occurred to the inexperienced boy that the fall of Khartum and the death of Gordon would occupy the attention of the people to the exclusion of everything else, and that the sheiks loyal to the government and the local officials would now have other things to do than to think of the deliverance of two white children. In fact, the Arabs who joined their caravan had not the least fear of being pursued. Though they traveled very rapidly and did not spare the camels, they remained near the Nile, and often at night they turned toward the river to water the animals and to fill the leather bags. Sometimes they even risked riding into the villages in broad daylight. Nevertheless, to make things doubly safe, they sent several people in advance to reconnoiter, who made an excuse of buying provisions, to find out the news of the district—whether all the Egyptian soldiers had left the neighborhood and whether the inhabitants were partisans of the Turks (Egyptians). When they came upon a place whose inhabitants secretly sympathized with the Mahdi, the whole caravan rode into the village, and it often happened that when the caravan left the place it was joined by several young Arabs desirous of fleeing to the Mahdi.