He spent his night at its emergence, as it was a red moon and its color was red, as it was on the sixteenth night of Rabi' al-Awwal in the year 1808. The Mahdi was with the Ansar, and he was sitting, saying: "Peace be upon you." They returned the greeting. He said, "Turn your gaze towards the east." He asked, "Have you seen anything?" The Khalifa Ali answered him, saying: "No, we have not seen this color." He said: "I heard the Mahdi, peace be upon him, say: 'If the Khartum is conquered, then God will grant my companions victory, which will accompany them forever.' So we said, 'O our master, what is that?' He said: 'It is the emergence of the moon in red color.'" Then the Ansar stood and said to the man: "You have spoken the truth, O companion. This is a sign for the Mahdi and a victory for him." The sky seemed to be covered with dust and smoke until it seemed as if the sky had covered the earth. After performing the Isha prayer, we returned to Omdurman and I spent my night wondering at the ignorance of the Mahdi's Ansar, who do not read what is written on the pages of the book, but rather what is written on the page of the moon. Finally, the rumor subsided and the English returned to Halfa. The truth is that they did not intend to advance to Khartoum, but rather they intended to drive the Ansar from the south of Halfa, and they defeated them and drove them away from its south. As for those events, their details have not reached us from reliable sources. However, the Ansar did not fear the prophecy, and their fears were dispelled. Those events, which he considered a prophecy, are not worth remembering.