Three years of it!"
At another moment Feversham was slinking up the Nile to Wadi Halfa with
a zither, in the company of some itinerant musicians, hiding from any
who might remember him and accuse him with his name. Trench heard of a
man slipping out from Wadi Halfa, crossing the Nile and wandering with
the assumed manner of a lunatic southwards, starving and waterless,
until one day he was snapped up by a Mahdist caravan and dragged to
Dongola as a spy. And at Dongola things had happened of which the mere
mention made Trench shake. He heard of leather cords which had been
bound about the prisoner's wrists, and upon which water had been poured
until the cords swelled and the wrists burst, but this was among the
minor brutalities. Trench waited for the morning as he listened,
wondering whether indeed it would ever come.
He heard the bolts dragged back at the last; he saw the door open and
the good daylight. He stood up and with Ibrahim's help protected this
new comrade until the eager rush was past. Then he supported him out
into the zareeba. Worn, wasted in body and face, with a rough beard
straggled upon his chin, and his eyes all sunk and very bright, it was
still Harry Feversham.
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