important emirs.

When Kakum was on his way to El Obeid, he had had a bad fall from a
bullock, which had injured him internally and made it almost impossible
for him to move: he was put into our zariba, and soon after he came I
went to see him and found him in a state of profound dejection. He was
very pleased to see me, and the tears rolled down his black cheeks; he
was so affected he could barely speak, and lost all control over
himself. His two wives were sitting near him--one of them, Mea, was a
thoroughly good woman, and many a happy hour did I spend playing with
her little child of six years old. Kakum gave me coffee, and we talked
over the old days at the Mission, then I left him to rest. That same
night I was suddenly summoned by Mea, who said that Kakum was seriously
ill; I hastened to the hut and found him almost unconscious, and in a
few hours he was dead. He was a thoroughly good, sensible man, and had
been a faithful friend to the Mission and to the Government. He died in
July 1885, and I think he must then have been about fifty-five years of
age. His second wife married the Khojur of Sobei, who had also been
dragged to El Obeid by Mahmud; but Mea did not marry again. She devoted
herself to her little child.

The boy delighted in being with me, and said he always wanted to stay
with the Christians; but a month later Mea and her child were allowed to
return to Delen. I gave the boy a little shirt, and in return Mea
promised to send me some tobacco; and, true to her word, a messenger
arrived soon afterwards with that luxury, in return for which I sent her
some glass beads.

During his stay at Delen, Mahmud had captured Shirra, one of the
renegade Baggara chiefs, and his two sons. This man had formerly been
our sworn enemy, and had declared that he would kill every one of us
Christians; but when this great chief and his sons came into the zariba
they greeted me like lambs, and when, in fun, I recalled to them their
former oaths, they admitted that they had been completely deceived, and
now that they had not words sufficient to praise the Christians or to
curse the Mahdi. It was no little satisfaction to me to find such an
entire change of mind and purpose in one who had been our bitterest foe.
Thus was justice tardily meted out to us.

Meanwhile Khalifa Abdullah had sent an order from Omdurman to Mahmud,
telling him to set out forthwith for Omdurman to swear the Bea'a (or
oath of allegiance) to the Mahdi's