"It is the Gospel of Christ--what the dickens are we to do with it?"
Meantime Ishmael's own people had begun to see him not as a poet, a
dreamer, but as a prophet with a mighty mission. In moments of rapture
he told them of a new order that was coming, a great day when all the
religions of the world would be united, when all faiths would be one
faith, all races one race, all nations one nation, when East and West
would be one world, and there would be only one God in it, one King and
one Law.
They saw him with tears in his eyes looking over the desert as he
foretold the conquest of the world for God, and listening eagerly to his
predictions of a better and happier day, they began to see something
God-like in himself, to regard him as a God-inspired man, a man sent
down from the skies with a message.
"Our souls lie beneath his sheepskin," they would say, and then they
would tell each other stories of supernatural appearances that
surrounded the new prophet--how while he preached celestial lights
floated about his head, and when he rode on his milk-white camel into
the desert of an afternoon, as it was his habit to do, flights of angels
were seen to descend and attend him.
The creation of this kind of myth led to trouble, for among Ishmael's
secret enemies were certain of the Ulema of Khartoum, who, jealous of
his great influence with the people, and suspecting him of an attempt to
change the immutable law of Islam, conceived the trick of getting him to
avow himself as a re-incarnation of the Mahdi in order that they might
betray him to the Government. So three of the meanest of them came one
morning to old Mahmud's house, and sitting in the guest-room, under its
thatch of corn-stalks, began to flatter Ishmael and say--
"From the moment we beheld thee we knew that thou wert the messenger of
God--the Expected One."
"Yes, indeed, Mohammed Ahmed is dead but Ishmael Ameer is alive!"
Ishmael listened to them for a moment in silence, and then with a flash
of fire out of his big eyes he clapped his hands and cried--
"Zogal! Abdullah! Turn these men out of the house," and in another
moment his two black giants had swept out the spies like rats.
But the crowds continued to come to Khartoum from north, south, east and
west, and at length, in fear that many might die of want, the Governor
of the city went up to Ishmael and said--
"Send these people back to their homes or they'll die of starvation."