His ankles were fettered, his wrists were bound with a rope of palm fibre, an iron collar was locked about his neck, to which a chain was attached, and this chain one of the soldiers held.

He stood and smiled at the mocking crowd about him and seemed well pleased, like a lunatic.
That was the character which he had assumed.

If he could sustain it, if he could baffle his captors, so that they were at a loss whether he was a man really daft or an agent with promises of help and arms to the disaffected tribes of Kordofan--then there was a chance that they might fear to dispose of him themselves and send him forward to Omdurman.

But it was hard work.

Inside the house the Emir and his counsellors were debating his destiny; on the river-bank and within his view a high gallows stood out black and most sinister against the yellow sand.