  Hardly had Emin departed for Lado, to take the troops there to the lake, when a certain Soliman Aga, a Nubian and former slave and a man of low condition, openly threw off the mask and summoned soldiers and officials to meet him. At this meeting he urged resistance, at the same time making the meanest accusations against the Christians. He sent messengers to Faliko, Msua, Wadelai, and urged them to unite in order to avert the calamity which the Pasha was about to visit upon the province. All were certain that they were to be taken to the south to be sold into slavery. The discontented natives replied secretly and quickly to the insurrectionary call and from the frequent comings and goings of messengers and their unusual intercourse with clerks and officials, Casati, who remained in the south, quickly came to a conclusion. Aga issued his commands absolutely and despotically. Woe to him who ventured to question them! Reason and justice, reflection and freedom had no influence. The soldiers shuddered at his unjust and cruel treatment. The Danagla trembled for their very existence. The stations were silent and abandoned. The powerful figure of the despot confronted them at the gates, often in furious anger and sometimes in a condition of excessive drunkenness, which made him still more terrible. In the nighttime furious beating of the great drums, shrill tones of fifes and discharges of musketry explained the business upon which the leader and his friends were engaged. When Emin issued his order to move the war material in the magazine at Dufile, southward, the soldiers unanimously resisted. Mistrust seized them. They saw they were no longer free of will, but would be driven by force and that they and their families would be exposed to the mercy of the natives and outside enemies. On the thirteenth of August (1888) the troops at Lahore were mustered upon the plaza of the village. Jephson, accompanied by Emin and various officers, read the letter of Stanley which the governor himself had translated into Arabic and invited the soldiers to express their intentions. An unusual murmur and a scarcely repressed disquiet were manifest, but no one among them ventured to say a word. Then suddenly a soldier stepped out from the ranks with his gun upon his arm. He advanced and, turning to the governor, said they were ready to withdraw and had fixed the corn harvest for the time. Jephson asked for a written promise which he could send to Stanley. Then the soldier became presumptuous and replied that this was not the way for the government’s soldiers to be treated. This order was deceitful, for the Khedive had commanded, not expressed, his wish. He had ordered the rescue of all, not their submission to autocratic power. Indignant at the soldier’s audacity, Emin stepped up to him, seized him by the neck, and ordered him to be disarmed and imprisoned. The soldiers to a man broke ranks and gathered together in threatening groups, pointing their guns at the governor, who had drawn his sabre to compel obedience. Quick action by the officers alone prevented an outbreak. The troops withdrew to keep guard at the arsenal, but refused their regular night service at the governor’s residence. On the nineteenth of August, Emin and Jephson entered the station at Dufile by the northern gate. The way into the village was forsaken. Not a single person met them and it was as silent everywhere as the grave. As they reached their house their entrance was prevented by a picket of soldiers on guard. The governor was taken prisoner, but Jephson in his capacity of guest was not included in their hostile designs. A new government was set up in Wadelai which was to secure justice for all! Dreadful news followed. In October, three steamers for Khartoum appeared before Redjaf. The armed Mahdists, who came in them, attacked and captured the station after a brief resistance. Three clerks and three officers, who heroically defended the entrance to the fort, were slain. A horrible massacre of men, women, and children ensued. No one was spared. Other assaults by the Mahdists followed and all were successful. The mutineers were panic-stricken, for they knew not how to withstand the advancing enemy. Casati availed himself of the situation by persuading the men who had usurped the government that it was necessary to remove the governor from the vicinity of the enemy’s operations. On the morning of the seventeenth of November Emin was sent under military escort and with the salute of cannon to the steamer which was to take him to Wadelai. There was a little creature on board who had suffered terrible anxiety for many long weeks. It was Ferida, Emin’s poor little child. She was so young that she could hardly comprehend her father’s situation. She only knew that something dreadful might happen. Captain Casati had so successfully used his influence that she was kept at his house during Emin’s imprisonment. Her father had often been away on journeys, but here it was very different. There was something terrible in the air. Almost every day she besought Casati to take her to her father and when her wish was not granted, she would ask a hundred times if any harm had happened to him. Now the terrible time seemed to her like a long, wretched dream. With sparkling eyes she clung to her “good little father” and was so delighted that she sang and danced about the deck. When the steamer arrived at Wadelai, the people crowded to the shore and expressed their joy in loud and enthusiastic shouts. It was like the triumph of a conqueror. The magistrates in white clothes overwhelmed him with expressions of devotion and hand kissing. Honored by the troops, greeted with the thunder of artillery, and overcome with surprise at the cordiality of his welcome, Emin made his way to his residence where he received the congratulations of the officers. They were a faint-hearted, fickle people, however, and if the rebel government had been introduced in the morning, they would have welcomed it with the same enthusiasm. |
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