"If I were to fall!" he gasped. "O God, if I were to fall!" and he
shouted aloud to his neighbour--for in that clamour nothing less than a
shout was audible--"Is it you, Ibrahim?" and a like shout answered him,
"Yes, Effendi."
Trench felt some relief. Between Ibrahim, a great tall Arab of the
Hadendoas, and Trench, a friendship born of their common necessities had
sprung up. There were no prison rations at Omdurman; each captive was
dependent upon his own money or the charity of his friends outside. To
Trench from time to time there came money from his friends, brought
secretly into the prison by a native who had come up from Assouan or
Suakin; but there were long periods during which no help came to him,
and he lived upon the charity of the Greeks who had sworn conversion to
the Mahdist faith, or starved with such patience as he could. There were
times, too, when Ibrahim had no friend to send him his meal into the
prison. And thus each man helped the other in his need. They stood side
by side against the wall at night.
"Yes, Effendi, I am here," and groping with his hand in the black
darkness, he steadied Trench against the wall.
A fight of even more than common violence was raging in an extreme
corner of the prison, and so closely packed were the prisoners that with
each advance of one combatant and retreat of the other, the whole
jostled crowd swayed in a sort of rhythm, from end to end, from side to
side.
Pages:
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385