Christian burial, to be
thus dishonored! Stas at that moment lost his faith in the English
people. Heretofore he naively believed that England, for an injury to
one of her citizens, was always ready to declare war against the whole
world. At the bottom of his soul there had lain a hope that in behalf
of Rawlinson's daughter, after the unsuccessful pursuit, formidable
English hosts would be set in motion even as far as Khartum and
farther. Now he became convinced that Khartum and that whole region was
in the hands of the Mahdi, and that the Egyptian Government and England
were thinking rather of preserving Egypt from further conquests than of
delivering the European prisoners from captivity.

He understood that he and Nell had fallen into an abyss from which
there was no escape, and these thoughts, linked with the horrors which
he witnessed on the streets of Omdurman, disheartened him completely.
His customary energy gave way to total passive submission to fate and a
dread of the future. In the meantime he began aimlessly to gaze about
the market-place and at the stalls at which Idris was bargaining for
provisions. The hucksters, mainly Sudanese women and negresses, sold
jubhas here, that is, white linen gowns, pieced together with many
colored patches, acacia gum, hollow gourds, glass beads, sulphur and
all kinds of mats. There were a few stalls with provisions and around
all of them the throng pressed. The Mahdists bought at high prices
principally dried strips of meat of domestic animals; likewise of
buffaloes, antelopes and giraffes. Dates, figs, manioc, and durra were
totally lacking. They sold here and there water and honey of wild bees,
and grains of dochnu soaked in a decoction of tamarind fruit. Idris
fell into despair, for it appeared that in view of the prevailing
market-prices he would soon exhaust all the money he had received from
Fatma Smain for living expenses and afterwards would, in all
probability, have to beg. His only hope now was in Smain, and strangely
enough Stas also relied solely upon Smain's assistance.

After a lapse of an hour Nur el-Tadhil returned from the caliph
Abdullahi. Evidently he had met with some kind of disagreeable mishap
there, for he returned in a bad humor. So when Idris asked him if he
had learned anything about Smain, he replied testily:

"Fool, do you think that the caliph and I have nothing better to do
than to seek Smain for you?"

"Well, what are you going to do with