ed to
stop them from admitting their convictions. One of the judges at length
stood up, and, desiring to make an end of this dangerous and humiliating
position, said to Abdel Nur: "We are with the Prophet, the Mahdi, and
his Khalifa; are you with us or not?" The fiki replied, "I am not with
you," whereupon the Khalifa sentenced him to death, and at ten o'clock
the same morning his body was dangling from the gallows; his friends
were not executed, but were severely reprimanded.

This execution was so sudden and unexpected that everyone was asking
what his crime could have been, but the Khalifa was careful to send
spies to all quarters to spread false reports about him, to the effect
that he was an unbeliever and a magician; these spies were also told to
ascertain exactly what the people said, but the latter knew they were
being watched, so they said nothing and retired; the spies set fire to
the fiki's clothes, and the next morning reported to the Khalifa that
hell-fire had burnt them up.

But the matter was not ended here; according to the Moslem law, if an
unbeliever be discovered, all his neighbours within a forty yards'
radius are considered guilty, and their houses may be plundered and
destroyed. This law was carried out in the fiki's case, and several
families with all their goods were dragged off to the beit el mal, while
their homes were occupied by the soldiers; several men were threatened
with the gallows, and there was a good deal of disturbance in the town.
The Khalifa's adherents were shouting, "Away with these unbelievers!"
Several suspected persons were seized and kept for three days in
continual fear of death.

On the third day several of the wives and families came to the Khalifa
and begged his forgiveness, throwing dust on their heads and making
every show of Oriental grief. On this occasion the Khalifa thought it
was sufficient to thoroughly frighten them all, so on the expiration of
the three days he released them and returned their property. He took
this opportunity of giving an order that it was the duty of every one to
report to him any fiki who was in the habit of writing amulets; spies
and informers soon produced numbers of such fikis, who only saved their
lives by making most solemn promises to the Khalifa that they would
never again be guilty of this disobedience of orders.

On another occasion a boat-boy was accused of having said something
against Mahdiism; he was hurried before the judge