I must hear how it was that Mahmud spared him.' "I told him that I understood, from your black, that the woman was Mahmud's favourite wife, and that she took you under her care.
"By the way, have you heard that Mahmud is captured?
Yes, he is caught, which is a great satisfaction to us; for his being sent down, a prisoner, will convince the tribesmen that we have gained a victory, as to which they would otherwise be incredulous.

I hear that the Egyptian brigade, which was to the extreme left, has captured Mahmud's wife, and a great number of women." "With your permission, sir, I will go over there at once, and ask Colonel Lewis that she may receive specially good treatment.

She has been extremely kind to me, and it is to her influence over Mahmud that I owe my life.

Up to this morning Mahmud would have spared me, but Osman Digna insisted that I should be killed, and he was obliged to give way.

They fastened me to a tree behind the trench, just inside the zareba, and I should certainly have been killed by our own musketry fire, had not my boy, who had come into the camp in disguise, cut my cords.