nt him late one night a very beautiful
female slave; but when she arrived at the house, Wad el Banna was
nowhere to be found, and it was discovered that he was with the Khalifa
Sherif. The next morning Abdullah announced that he deserved to be
hanged; but as he had been very fond of him, he forgave him for the
Mahdi's sake; but ordered all the books to be burnt, and that he should
be transported to Regaf. Just as the steamer was about to sail with Wad
el Banna on board, the Khalifa recalled and pardoned him.

There was now little doubt that the Ashraf were forming a conspiracy;
the immediate result of this discovery was the sudden arrest and
imprisonment of Zogal, which caused no small stir. Then followed the
arrest of Fadl Maula (afterwards known as Abdel Maula), which created
still more excitement. Fadl Maula was the late Abu Anga's brother, and
commanded the black troops in Omdurman. He was a man of great influence,
not only on account of his brother's reputation, but he had also
performed a number of valuable services for the Khalifa, notably at the
time of the dispute regarding the Mahdi's successor. He lived near
Gordon's fort of Omdurman, enjoyed a high position, and acquired a large
number of the most handsome women in the Sudan for his harem.

These ladies lived in the highest luxury. He built good houses for them,
and in the evening he had a band of Fertit blacks, who played before
them on a variety of instruments. He was perhaps of all the emirs the
most favoured. He had no scruples in going round his men's quarters
picking out the good-looking women and sending them to his harem; but
this debauched and extravagant mode of living soon brought its reward,
and he became affected by a sort of leprosy which seemed to have touched
his brain. He became violent, and had to be put in chains. He lay for
months in this condition, and no medicine was given to him to ease his
pain.

At length a fiki was summoned who declared the disease to be the result
of witchcraft, and he volunteered to find out by whom this evil had been
practised on him. One of Abdel Maula's wives was a young girl of great
beauty, who was preferred to all the rest, and who lived with her
mother. Love, however, soon grew cold, and he became enamoured of
another of his wives; but the mother of the cast-off girl determined to
be revenged, and to aid her in her object, she sought the assistance of
a fiki, who gave her a number of amulets, for which sh