CHAPTER XII 



SIWAH 



" 24th Oct. 1896.— 



" I have been reading Slatin's ' Fire and Sword in the Soudan,' a 

 sensational volume written with a purpose, the style obviously Win- 

 gate's, as it is identical with his ' Ohrwalder ' book. Slatin is a mean 

 wretch to have published i'fc, and the Mahdi made a mistake in not 

 cutting off his head at once when he surrendered, and sending him 

 straight to Paradise. His professions of loyalty to the Khedive and 

 to our gracious Queen are fulsome, and those of disloyalty to the 

 people whose religion he adopted to save his miserable life, disgusting. 

 Gordon's judgment of him is justified when he distrusted him as a 

 traitor and despised him as a renegade, for he shows himself here 

 doubly both. 



" With regard to the Mahdi, Slatin declares him to have been a 

 hypocrite and an impostor, but his opinion rests upon no evidence 

 given and seems to me wholly improbable. Slatin only saw him a 

 few times and was never at all in his confidence, and on the few oc- 

 casions that 'the Mahdi spoke to him he seems to have done so kindly 

 and reasonably. Slatin is himself a witness that the whole of the 

 Mahdi's followers believed in him to the very end, and it is quite 

 incredible that they should have done so if, while preaching self- 

 denial to others, he had really been the monster of depravi'ty Slatin 

 affirms him to have been in his private life. Such a discrepancy could 

 not have been hidden from the Soudanese world and could not but have 

 destroyed the popular belief in him. With regard to the Khalifa 

 Abdullah the position is different, as Slatin mas intimate with him 

 and Abdullah had no pretensions to high sanctity, nor did his fol- 

 lowers believe in him as a saint. Slatin talks about his own military 

 honour, but how does the case stand? When he surrendered to the 

 Mahdi he was put in reali'ty on parole, that is to say, he promised and 

 swore fidelity to the Mahdi, in return for which he was allowed his 

 freedom and an honourable position in the Mahdi's army. He used 

 this position to betray the Mahdi by writing letters to Gordon in a 

 sense contrary to his orders. For his treachery he might justly have 

 been shot, but after a short imprisonment, and on his giving a new 



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