The Mutiny
Hardly had Emin departed for Lado, to take the troops there to the lake,
when a certain Soliman Aga, a Nubian and former slave and a man of low
condition, openly threw off the mask and summoned soldiers and officials
to meet him. At this meeting he urged resistance, at the same time
making the meanest accusations against the Christians. He sent
messengers to Faliko, Msua, Wadelai, and urged them to unite in order to
avert the calamity which the Pasha was about to visit upon the province.
All were certain that they were to be taken to the south to be sold into
slavery. The discontented natives replied secretly and quickly to the
insurrectionary call and from the frequent comings and goings of
messengers and their unusual intercourse with clerks and officials,
Casati, who remained in the south, quickly came to a conclusion. Aga
issued his commands absolutely and despotically. Woe to him who ventured
to question them! Reason and justice, reflection and freedom had no
influence. The soldiers shuddered at his unjust and cruel treatment. The
Danagla trembled for their very existence. The stations were silent and
abandoned. The powerful figure of the despot confronted them at the
gates, often in furious anger and sometimes in a condition of excessive
drunkenness, which made him still more terrible. In the nighttime
furious beating of the great drums, shrill tones of fifes and discharges
of musketry explained the business upon which the leader and his friends
were engaged.
When Emin issued his order to move the war material in the magazine at
Dufile, southward, the soldiers unanimously resisted. Mistrust seized
them. They saw they were no longer free of will, but would be driven by
force and that they and their families would be exposed to the mercy of
the natives and outside enemies. On the thirteenth of August (1888) the
troops at Lahore were mustered upon the plaza of the village. Jephson,
accompanied by Emin and various officers, read the letter of Stanley
which the governor himself had translated into Arabic and invited the
soldiers to express their intentions. An unusual murmur and a scarcely
repressed disquiet were manifest, but no one among them ventured to say
a word. Then suddenly a soldier stepped out from the ranks with his gun
upon his arm. He advanced and, turning to the governor, said they were
ready to withdraw and had fixed the corn harvest for the time. Jephson
asked for a written promise which he could send to Stanley. Then the
soldier became presumptuous and replied that this was not the way for
the government's soldiers to be treated. This order was deceitful, for
the Khedive had commanded, not expressed, his wish. He had ordered the
rescue of all, not their submission to autocratic power.
Indignant at the soldier's audacity, Emin stepped up to him, seized him
by the neck, and ordered him to be disarmed and imprisoned. The soldiers
to a man broke ranks and gathered together in threatening groups,
pointing their guns at the governor, who had drawn his sabre to compel
obedience. Quick action by the officers alone prevented an outbreak. The
troops withdrew to keep guard at the arsenal, but refused their regular
night service at the governor's residence. On the nineteenth of August,
Emin and Jephson entered the station at Dufile by the northern gate. The
way into the village was forsaken. Not a single person met them and it
was as silent everywhere as the grave. As they reached their house their
entrance was prevented by a picket of soldiers on guard. The governor
was taken prisoner, but Jephson in his capacity of guest was not
included in their hostile designs. A new government was set up in
Wadelai which was to secure justice for all!
Dreadful news followed. In October, three steamers for Khartoum appeared
before Redjaf. The armed Mahdists, who came in them, attacked and
captured the station after a brief resistance. Three clerks and three
officers, who heroically defended the entrance to the fort, were slain.
A horrible massacre of men, women, and children ensued. No one was
spared. Other assaults by the Mahdists followed and all were successful.
The mutineers were panic-stricken, for they knew not how to withstand
the advancing enemy. Casati availed himself of the situation by
persuading the men who had usurped the government that it was necessary
to remove the governor from the vicinity of the enemy's operations.
On the morning of the seventeenth of November Emin was sent under
military escort and with the salute of cannon to the steamer which was
to take him to Wadelai. There was a little creature on board who had
suffered terrible anxiety for many long weeks. It was Ferida, Emin's
poor little child. She was so young that she could hardly comprehend her
father's situation. She only knew that something dreadful might happen.
Captain Casati had so successfully used his influence that she was kept
at his house during Emin's imprisonment. Her father had often been away
on journeys, but here it was very different. There was something
terrible in the air. Almost every day she besought Casati to take her to
her father and when her wish was not granted, she would ask a hundred
times if any harm had happened to him. Now the terrible time seemed to
her like a long, wretched dream. With sparkling eyes she clung to her
"good little father" and was so delighted that she sang and danced about
the deck.
When the steamer arrived at Wadelai, the people crowded to the shore and
expressed their joy in loud and enthusiastic shouts. It was like the
triumph of a conqueror. The magistrates in white clothes overwhelmed him
with expressions of devotion and hand kissing. Honored by the troops,
greeted with the thunder of artillery, and overcome with surprise at the
cordiality of his welcome, Emin made his way to his residence where he
received the congratulations of the officers. They were a faint-hearted,
fickle people, however, and if the rebel government had been introduced
in the morning, they would have welcomed it with the same enthusiasm.