The Presence Of Women Increased The
Vanity Of The Warriors:
And it was not very long before the patched smock
which had vaunted the holy poverty of the rebels developed into the gaudy
jibba of the conquerors.
Since the unhealthy situation of Khartoum amid
swamps and marshes did not commend itself to the now luxurious Arabs,
the Mahdi began to build on the western bank of the White Nile a new
capital, which, from the detached fort which had stood there in Egyptian
days, was called Omdurman. Among the first buildings which he set his
subjects to construct were a mosque for the services of religion,
an arsenal for the storage of military material, and a house for himself.
But while he was thus entering at once upon the enjoyments of supreme
power and unbridled lust, the God whom he had served, not unfaithfully,
and who had given him whatever he had asked, required of Mohammed Ahmed
his soul; and so all that he had won by his brains and bravery became of
no more account to him.
In the middle of the month of June, scarcely five months after the
completion of his victorious campaigns, the Mahdi fell sick. For a few
days he did not appear at the mosque. The people were filled with alarm.
They were reassured by remembering the prophecy that their liberator
should not perish till he had conquered the earth. Mohammed, however, grew
worse. Presently those who attended him could doubt no longer that he was
attacked by typhus fever. The Khalifa Abdullah watched by his couch
continually. On the sixth day the inhabitants and the soldiers were
informed of the serious nature of their ruler's illness, and public
prayers were offered by all classes for his recovery. On the seventh day
it was evident that he was dying. All those who had shared his fortunes -
the Khalifas he had appointed, the chief priests of the religion he had
reformed, the leaders of the armies who had followed him to victory,
and his own family whom he had hallowed - crowded the small room. For some
hours he lay unconscious or in delirium, but as the end approached he
rallied a little, and, collecting his faculties by a great effort,
declared his faithful follower and friend the Khalifa Abdullah his
successor, and adjured the rest to show him honour. 'He is of me,
and I am of him; as you have obeyed me, so you should deal with him.
May God have mercy upon me!' [Slatin, FIRE AND SWORD.]
Then he immediately expired.
Grief and dismay filled the city. In spite of the emphatic prohibition
by law of all loud lamentations, the sound of 'weeping and wailing arose
from almost every house.' The whole people, deprived at once of their
acknowledged sovereign and spiritual guide, were shocked and affrighted.
Only the Mahdi's wives, if we may credit Slatin, 'rejoiced secretly in
their hearts at the death of their husband and master,' and, since they
were henceforth to be doomed to an enforced and inviolable chastity,
the cause of their satisfaction is as obscure as its manifestation was
unnatural.
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