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"Others have been spared who have been of service, my lord," she said. "There are Greeks and Egyptians who work your guns, and they were spared because they were useful. There is Neufeld, who lives under the protection of the Khalifa. Surely these men have done far more to deserve, not only life, but honour at your hands. They risked their lives to save mine.
The Sirdar and party were frequently shot at, particularly on nearing the Khalifa's quarters. Abdullah slipped out with his treasures as the Sirdar arrived at his gate. It was long after sunset and dark when, with difficulty, the prison was reached, and Charles Neufeld brought out of his loathsome den, where he had spent eleven years in chains.
Like the other European prisoners who fell into their hands, he had undergone great hardships and experienced all the trials of misfortune. Neufeld and several hundred natives who had incurred the Khalifa's ire or distrust were found in a pestilential enclosure less than an acre in extent, surrounded by mud-walls. All of them wore heavy leg chains, and a few were handcuffed besides.
Neufeld, who was placed on a pony, seemed nearly mad with delight, and talked and gesticulated with queer animation. 'Thirteen years, he said to his rescuer, 'have I waited for this day. From the prison, as it was now dark, the Sirdar rode to the great square in front of the mosque, in which his headquarters were established, and where both British brigades were already bivouacking.
He hoped to make peace some day with the outside world, and be allowed thereafter to rule the Soudan. All this, I submit, is rather puzzling, in view of the filthy den the Khalifa kept Neufeld shut up in, and the manner in which he loaded him with heavy leg-irons. During his captivity, Neufeld had with him an Abyssinian girl, or rather woman. She was taken prisoner with him.
The Sirdar conversed with the prisoner, and a fruitless effort was made to find the jailer and have Neufeld's irons removed. Ultimately, when night had quite fallen and it was pitch dark, Neufeld was set upon an officer's horse, and the Sirdar and headquarters bringing him with them rode outside to where the main body of the army was bivouacking upon the desert, north of Omdurman.
At the mosque two fanatics charged the Soudanese escort, and each killed or badly wounded a soldier before he was shot. The day was now far spent, and it was dusk when the prison was reached. The General was the first to enter that foul and gloomy den. Charles Neufeld and some thirty heavily shackled prisoners were released.
As everybody knew, he befriended the Greeks, because he could do that with safety, for the natives were not so jealous of them as of other white men. The Taaisha were, he declared, absurdly suspicious of his intercourse with Neufeld, and were always bringing him tales, to try and get him to kill all the white men without exception.
His countrymen's jealous, narrow fanaticism annoyed him, but what, he asked, could he do, for he was very much in their power, and unable to afford to fly in their faces? Abdullah often spoke thus, according to Neufeld, and, as the latter also said, frequently that leader of the fanatical dervishes exhibited keen interest in acquiring information about Europe and its people.
Neufeld was found under a mat-covered lean-to built against the mud-wall. There was no other protection for the prisoners from sunshine or rain than coarse worn matting spread upon sticks and laid against the walls. The enclosure was without any sanitary arrangements whatever. A well had been dug near the middle of the yard and from there the prisoners drew all the water they used.
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