CHAPTER V

A VOICE FROM THE PAST It was the prudent custom of the Emir el Hamel el Kebir and his Vizier, the Sheikh el Habibka, to sit apart from all men, that they might converse of high matters of state in the completest privacy. This they did upon a rug-strewn carpet, above which a roof-canopy of felt was supported by four poles. At the corners of an imaginary square, four Soudanese sentries, a hundred yards each from the other and from their Lords, watched that no man approached without invitation. . . . To them, seated t…