THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 143 



as he would send me fifty porters on the Monday, and we would 

 move off in company. At the very moment that he thus pro- 

 fessed, he was coolly deceiving me. He had arranged to start 

 without me on the Saturday, while he was proposing that we 

 should march together on Monday. This I did not know at the 

 time. One morning I had returned to the tent after having, as 

 usual, inspected the transport animals, when I observed Mrs. 

 Baker looking extraordinarily pale, and immediately upon my 

 arrival she gave orders for the vakeel (headman) to be brought- 

 There was something in her manner so different to her usual 

 calm that I was utterly bewildered when I heard her question the 

 vakeel, 'whether the men were willing to march? ' 'Perfectly 

 ready,' was the reply. ' Then order them to strike the tent and 

 load the animals; we start this moment.' The man appeared 

 confused, but not more so than I. Something was evidently on 

 foot, but what I could not conjecture. The vakeel wavered, and 

 to my astonishment I heard the accusation made against him that, 

 'during the night, the whole of the escort had mutinously con- 

 spired to desert me, with my arms and ammunition that were in 

 their hands, and to fire simultaneously at me should I attempt to 

 disarm them.' At first this charge was indignantly denied, until 

 the boy Saat manfully stepped forward, and declared that the 

 conspiracy was entered into by the whole of the escort, and that 

 both he and Hicham, knowing that mutiny was intended, had 

 listened purposely to the conversation during the night ; at day- 

 break the boy bad reported the fact to his mistress. Mutiny, 

 robbery and murder were thus deliberately determined. 



Realizing that it would never do to attempt to penetrate Africa 

 with such men, Baker determined to get rid of them. He first 

 disarmed them, with the assistance of his courageous wife and 

 the faithful Richarn and Saat, and then gave them their dis- 

 charges, writing the word "mutineer" above his signature on 

 each of them. None of the men being able to read, they uncon- 

 sciously carried the evidence of their own guilt, which he resolved 

 to punish should he ever find them on his return to Khartoum. 



Most of the men that Baker disarmed at once joined trading 



