There was no pause or rest for the troops who had been fighting, for so
many hours, in the heat of the African sun. It was all important to
occupy Omdurman before the remnants of the Khalifa's army reached it;
and as it was known that the Khalifa himself had returned there, it was
hoped that he might be captured.
It was ten o'clock when Macdonald's brigade fired their last shot. In
half an hour, the troops went forward again. The field presented a
terrible appearance, being thickly dotted with dead, from the Surgham
Hill across the plain; and round, by the Kerreri Hills, to the spot
where Macdonald's brigade had made their stand. There were
comparatively few wounded; for, wiry and hardy as they were, the
wounded Dervishes, unless mortally hit, were for the most part able to
crawl or walk away; which they had done unmolested, for on each
occasion after the bugle sounded cease firing, not a shot was fired at
them. But of dead there were fully ten thousand, scattered more or less
thickly over the plain.
From the position in which they were placed, the Egyptian troops, as
they marched south, passed the spot where the Khalifa's flag was still
flying, as it had been left after its last defenders had fallen.
Slatin, who was with the army, rode over the plain at the Sirdar's
request, to ascertain if any of the Dervish leaders were among the
fallen. He recognized many, but the Khalifa, his son Ed Din, and Osman
Digna were not among them. The last-named had ever been chary of
exposing himself, and had probably, as was his custom, viewed the
battle from a safe distance. But round the flag were the Khalifa's
brother, Yacoub, and ten or twelve of the leading emirs.
On our side, the loss had been comparatively light. Our total number of
casualties, including the wounded, was five hundred and twenty-four;
towards which Macdonald's brigade contributed one hundred and
twenty-eight. Marching steadily on, the force halted in the outlying
suburb of Omdurman, at midday, to obtain much needed food and water. As
soon as the cavalry had watered their horses, they were sent round to
the south of the town to cut off fugitives, and some of the gunboats
moved up to their support.
Deputations of the townsfolk, Greeks and natives, came out and offered
to surrender. They said that the Khalifa was in his house, and that he
had about a thousand of his bodyguard with him, but that they could not
offer any successful resistance. The town was full of fugitive
Dervishes; many thousands of them were there--among them a great number
of wounded.
At half past four the Sirdar, with his staff, entered the town;
accompanied by Maxwell's Egyptian brigade. Only a few shots were fired.
The Dervish courage was broken. It was to the followers of the Prophet,
and not to the infidels, that the plains of Kerreri had proved fatal.
It was their bodies, and not those of the white soldiers, that were
strewn there so thickly. The promise of the Khalifa had been falsified,
the tomb of the Mahdi was crumbling into ruins, the bravest of their
troops had fallen--what more was there to be done?
As Slatin Pasha rode in at the head of the troops, he was instantly
recognized by the people, among whom, for years, he had been a
prisoner; and on his assurances that mercy would be shown to all, if
there was no resistance, numbers of the Dervishes came out from their
houses and huts, and laid down their arms.
The women flocked out into the streets, uttering their long and
quavering cries of welcome. To them the entry of the British was a
relief from a living death, as almost all were captives taken in war,
or in the Dervish raids upon quiet villages. They could scarce even yet
believe that they were free--that their tyrants were slain or
fugitives.
Intense was the surprise and relief of the population, when they were
told that there would be no looting--no harm done to any by the
conquerors; that all would be free, if they chose, to depart to their
homes, and to take their few belongings with them.
The scene in the town was awful--the stench overpowering! The Dervishes
were absolutely ignorant of all sanitary methods--pools of the foulest
slush abounded, and thousands of dead animals, in all stages of
decomposition, lay about the streets. Among them were numerous dead
bodies, principally of girls and women, who had been killed by their
brutal husbands or masters, to prevent them from falling into the hands
of the British. There were also many dead Dervishes, and others
desperately wounded.
Strangely enough, the latter did not seem to regard their victorious
enemy with the hate that had been exhibited by many of the wounded in
the field; and some of them half raised themselves, and saluted the
Sirdar and his staff as they passed along.
Presently, there was a commotion in the crowd. The wall of the great
granary had been breached, by some of the lyddite shells, and the grain
had poured out into the street. The natives near ran up to gather it;
and, finding that they were not molested by the British, the news
spread rapidly. The crowds in the streets melted away; and the
inhabitants, for the most part half starved, made a mad rush to the
spot, where in a short time many thousands of men, women, and children
were hard at work, gathering and carrying off the grain.
In the meantime the Sirdar, with a party of Maxwell's brigade, passed
along by the side of the great wall enclosing the buildings, and square
mile of ground, in which were the Khalifa's house, the tomb of the
Mahdi, the arsenal, storehouses, and the homes of the principal emirs.
As soon as they had turned the corner of the wall, in view of the tomb
and the Khalifa's house, a brisk fire was opened by the garrison.
Fortunately, the wall was not loopholed, and they had to get on the top
of it, or on to the flat roofs of the houses, to fire. Maxwell's men
soon silenced them, and on the troops passing in through the breaches,
and along the wall, most of the Dervishes at once surrendered.
For a time, further advance was barred by an inner wall, that still
intervened between them and the Khalifa's house. After the gunboats'
fire had cleared away a number of the Dervishes clustered outside the
south wall, the Sirdar and his staff entered by a gateway, and moved
towards the Khalifa's house. This was searched by Slatin Pasha, and
several officers and soldiers; but, to the general disappointment, it
was found that the Khalifa had escaped but a short time before,
carrying with him his treasure; his wives having been sent off, as soon
as he returned from the field of battle.
The Mahdi's tomb was a ruin. A large portion of the dome had been
knocked away, and the falling fragments had smashed the iron railings
that surrounded the tomb, itself.
There was nothing more to be done. The pursuit of the Khalifa, mounted,
as he would be, on fresh horses, was out of the question. It was
already almost dark, and men and horses had been at work since before
daybreak. The town was in a very disturbed state--large numbers of the
Dervishes were still possessed of their arms, and the greater portion
of the troops were withdrawn from the pestilential town. Next morning a
larger force was marched in, and the work of disarmament completed.
The cavalry went out and scouted the country, and brought in large
numbers of prisoners. The men belonging to the tribes that had
renounced Mahdism--Jaalin and others--were at once allowed to leave for
their homes; and numbers of others, whose appearance was peaceful, and
who had at once given up their arms, were also released; but there were
still no fewer than eleven thousand prisoners, among them some of the
Khalifa's emirs.
Many of the townspeople had started, the previous evening, for the
field of battle; to bury the bodies of their friends who had fallen,
and to bring in the wounded. Of the latter, after our own men had been
attended to, fully nine thousand received aid and attention from the
British doctors.
On the morning after the occupation, the work of purification began.
Great numbers of the unwounded prisoners, and of the townspeople, were
set to work to clean the streets; and, in a couple of days, the wider
thoroughfares and avenues had been thoroughly cleansed.
Having but little to do, Gregory went into the Khalifa's arsenal. This
building was full of war material of all kinds; including a perfectly
appointed battery of Krupp guns, numbers of old cannon, modern
machine-guns, rifles and pistols; mixed up with musical instruments,
suits of chain armour, steel helmets, hundreds of battle flags, and
thousands of native spears, swords, and shields. Besides these the
collection comprised ivory, percussion caps, lead, copper, and bronze,
looms, pianos, sewing machines, boilers, steam engines, agricultural
implements, ostrich feathers, wooden and iron bedsteads, paints, India
rubber, leather water bottles, clothes, three state coaches, and an
American buggy. There were also a modern smithy, where gunpowder,
shell, bullets, and cartridge cases were made and stored; and a
well-appointed engineers' shop and foundry, with several steam engines,
turning lathes, and other tools. The machinery had been brought from
Gordon's arsenal at Khartoum, where the foreman had been employed; and
the workmen were, for the most part, Greeks.
The battle was fought on Friday, the 2nd of September. On Sunday a
flotilla of boats, containing detachments from all the British and
Egyptian regiments, and every officer who could be spared from duty,
proceeded up the river to Khartoum. The ruined and deserted city looked
delightful, after the sand, dirt, and wretchedness of Omdurman. The
gardens of the governor's house, and other principal buildings, had run
wild; and the green foliage was restful indeed, to the eye, after the
waste of sand, rock, and scrub that had been traversed by the army on
its way from Wady Halfa.
The vessels drew up opposite a grove of tall palms. Beyond them
appeared what had been the government house. The upper story was gone,
the windows were filled up with bricks, and a large acacia stood in
front of the building.
The troops formed up before the palace, in three sides of a square--the
Egyptians were to the left, looking from the river, and the British to
the right--the Sirdar, and the generals of the divisions and brigades,
facing the centre. Two flagstaffs had been raised on the upper story.
The Sirdar gave the signal, and the British and Egyptian flags were run
up. As they flew out, one of the gunboats fired a salute, the Guards'
band struck up "God Save the Queen!" and the band of the 11th Soudanese
then played the Khedive's hymn, while the Generals and all present
stood in salute, with their hands to the peak of their helmets. The
Sirdar's call for three cheers for the Queen was enthusiastically
responded to, every helmet being raised. Similar cheers were then given
for the Khedive, the bands again struck up, and twenty-one guns were
fired.
As the last gun echoed out, the Guards played the Dead March, in Saul;
and the black band the march called Toll for the Brave, the latter in
memory of the Khedive's subjects, who had died with Gordon. Then minute
guns were fired, and four chaplains--Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist,
and Catholic--by turns read a psalm or a prayer. The pipers then wailed
a dirge, and finally the Soudanese bands played Gordon's favourite
hymn, Abide with Me.
At the conclusion, General Hunter and the other officers shook hands
with the Sirdar, one by one. Kitchener himself was deeply moved, and
well he might be! Fourteen years of his life had been spent in
preparing for, and carrying out, this campaign; and now the great task
was done. Gordon was avenged. Of the Dervish host, the remnant were
scattered fugitives. The Mahdi's cause, the foulest and most
bloodstained tyranny that had ever existed, transforming as it did a
flourishing province into an almost uninhabited desert, was crushed
forever; and it was his patient and unsparing labour, his wonderful
organization, that had been the main factor in the work. No wonder that
even the Iron Sirdar almost broke down, at such a moment.
The bugles sounded, and the troops broke up their formation; and, for
half an hour, wandered through the empty chambers of the palace, and
the wild and beautiful garden. Another bugle call, and they streamed
down to the water's edge, took to the boats, and returned to Omdurman.
The long-delayed duty, which England owed to one of her noblest sons,
had been done. Gordon had had his burial. None knew where his bones
reposed, but that mattered little. In the place where he was slain, all
honour had been done to him; and the British flag waved over the spot
where he disappeared, forever, from the sight of his countrymen.
On Gregory's return, he found Zaki in a state of the highest
excitement.
"Why, what is the matter with you, Zaki?"
"Oh, master, I have found my two sisters!"
"That is good news, indeed. I am very glad to hear it, Zaki. How did
you find them?"
"While you were away, Master, I had been walking through the town; and
when I was passing near the outskirts, a woman came to a door, and
looked very hard at me. Then she suddenly drew aside the cloth from her
face and cried, 'Surely it is Zaki!'
"Then I knew her--she was my elder sister. Then another woman came to
the door--it was my younger sister, and you can imagine my joy. Both
had been married to Baggaras, who had carried them off. Their husbands
had gone to the battle, and had not returned; and some neighbours who
had gone to the battlefield, next day, brought back news that they had
found both bodies; so one sister came to stay with the other. People
had told them that it was safe to go out, and that no one was injured
who did so; but they had a store of grain in the house, and they
decided to wait and see what happened.
"One of them, seeing me come along, and observing that I belonged to
the Jaalin, came out to ask me the news; and they were as delighted as
I was, at our meeting."
"And your mother, do they know anything of her?"
"She was killed, Master," Zaki said sorrowfully. "I thought possibly it
would be so. The Dervishes did not carry off old women. They killed
them, and the little children. I had never hoped to see her again; but
I did think, when we entered Omdurman, that my sisters might be here."
"What are they going to do?"
"They will go down to Berber. I have told them that many of the people
here are going down, and that they will find no difficulty in joining a
party. They are sure to find people they know, at Berber, for most of
the Jaalin who have escaped have gone there, since we occupied the
place. I told them that I would give them what money I had; for, since
I have been in my lord's service, I have had no occasion to spend aught
that he has paid me."
"I have no doubt, Zaki, that I can arrange for them to go down in one
of the empty store boats. I believe that many of the captives who have
been released will be sent down that way; and, of course, I shall be
glad to give your sisters enough to keep them, for some time, at
Berber."
"My lord is too good," Zaki said gratefully.
"Nonsense, Zaki! You saved my life, and I owe you a great deal. I will
go down, at once, to the river--that is, if your sisters are ready to
start tomorrow--and I have no doubt the transport officer will give me
an order, for them, to go in one of the boats."
As he had expected, he had no difficulty in making arrangements.
Several of the native boats, that had already landed their stores,
would leave on the following day; and Gregory obtained an order for the
passage of the two women. He then drew some money from the paymaster
and, on his return to headquarters, gave Zaki a hundred dollars for his
sisters.
The black was overpowered with joy and, going off, returned with the
two girls--for they were little more. Each took one of Gregory's hands,
and pressed it to her forehead and heart, and murmured her thanks.
"Do not thank me," he said. "It is but a small part of the debt that I
owe your brother. I do not know whether he has told you that he saved
my life, at the risk of his own."
"I have been thinking, my lord," Zaki said, "that it would be well for
them to go down in the boat as far as Dongola. Our village is not many
miles from that place, and many of our people fled there; and doubtless
they will return to their villages, and plant their fields, now that
they have no longer any fear of the Dervishes. At any rate, they are
certain to meet friends, at Dongola."
"Very well, I will get the order altered. There will be no difficulty
about that. I shall be very glad to know that you will have a home to
go to, when this war is quite over."
"I shall never go, as long as my lord will keep me," Zaki said,
fervently.
"I certainly shall not part with you, Zaki, as long as I remain in this
country, which will probably be for a long time."
The next day, Zaki aided in carrying his sisters' goods down to the
river bank, and saw them on board one of the native craft, which
carried also fifteen or twenty other fugitives.
"Now, Mr. Hilliard," General Hunter said, that morning, "you can devote
yourself to the object for which you came here. Unquestionably, there
must be many among the prisoners who fought at El Obeid. You may gather
all particulars of the battle, from their lips.
"The greater portion of the white troops will march down the country,
at once. Of course, I don't know what your plans may be; but unless you
have a very good reason to the contrary, I should certainly advise you
to retain your position in the Egyptian army. A great deal of work will
have to be done, before matters are quite settled down; and then civil
administration of some sort will, of course, be formed, under which you
would certainly obtain a far better post than you could hope to get, at
home."
"I have quite made up my mind to do so, sir. Certainly, when I left
Cairo, I had no idea of remaining permanently in the service; but I
have been so exceptionally fortunate, owing largely to your kindness,
that I have been seriously thinking the matter over; and am quite
determined that, if I can obtain an appointment, I will remain here. I
have no ties, whatever, either in Lower Egypt or in England; no way of
earning my living there; and possibly, as I have begun so early, I may
rest, in time, in what will no doubt become an important branch of the
Egyptian administration."
"I am glad to hear that you take that view. We all grumble at the
Soudan, and yet there are few of us but would be sorry to leave it; and
there can be no doubt whatever that, under our administration, it will,
in time, become a magnificently rich and fertile province."
Being relieved from other duty, at present, Gregory went to the great
yard near the mosque, called the Praying Square, where the majority of
the Dervish prisoners were confined. Addressing a man of some
five-and-forty years, he asked him, in Arabic, whether many among the
prisoners had fought against Hicks, at El Obeid.
The man hesitated.
"I am not asking on the part of the Sirdar," Gregory said; "and you may
be sure that, if no punishment is inflicted against those who have
fought against us now, there can be no thought of punishment, for a
thing that happened so many years ago. My father was, I believe, one of
the English officers killed there; but as he spoke Arabic well, it is
just possible he was not killed; but, like Slatin and Neufeld, was kept
as a slave, in case he might be useful."
"There are many here who fought against Hicks," the native said. "I
myself fought there, and nearly all the Baggara who are as old as I am
were there, also. I have never heard of a white man who escaped death.
When we broke into the square, the English General and his officers
charged into the middle of us, and all fell. I was not close at the
time, but I saw their bodies, an hour afterwards."
"My father was not a fighting officer. He was the interpreter, and may
not have been near the others. When the attack by your people was made,
I have heard that one of the Soudanese regiments held together, and
marched away, and that there was a white officer with them."
"That was so. Two days afterwards, we surrounded them. They fought
hard; and at last, when we had lost many men, we offered that, if they
would surrender and become the Mahdi's men, they would be spared. Most
of them did so, just as some of our tribesmen, taken by you at Atbara,
have now taken service with you."
"But the white officer--what became of him?"
"I cannot say," the native said. "I have no memory of him. He may have
fallen before they surrendered--who can say? Certainly, I do not
remember a white man being killed, after they did so. I will ask others
who were there, and tomorrow will tell you what they say."
It was a busy day, in Omdurman. The army that had made such efforts,
and achieved so great a triumph, marched in military order, with bands
playing, through the town. The Sirdar had a double motive, in ordering
them to do so. In the first place, it was a legitimate triumph of the
troops, thus to march as conquerors through the town. In the second
place the sight would impress, not only the inhabitants, but the
Dervish prisoners, with a sense of the power of those who, henceforth,
would be their masters; and, undoubtedly, the show had the desired
effect. The orderly ranks, as they swept along, the proud demeanour of
the men, their physique and equipment, created a profound impression
among the natives. Half of them were their own kinsmen, many of whom
had fought for the Khalifa, and had now aided in defeating him. This
was what had been accomplished by drill and discipline, and the
influence of white officers. The Soudanese were evidently well fed and
cared for; not even the haughty Baggara held their heads so high.
Especially admired were the artillery, battery following battery, in
perfect order. These were the guns that had carried death into the
ranks of the Dervishes, against whose fire even the fanatical bravery
of the followers of the Khalifa was unable to stand. When the march
past was concluded, there was scarce one of the prisoners who would not
gladly have enlisted.
On the following day, Gregory again went to the Praying Square. The man
he had the morning before seen, at once came up to him.
"I have enquired of many who were at El Obeid, my lord," he said. "All
say that there was no white man in the camp, when the black battalion
surrendered, though one had been seen while the fighting was going on.
Nor was the body of one found, where the fight had taken place on the
previous day. It was a matter of talk among the Dervishes, at the time;
for they had lain in a circle round the enemy, and were convinced that
no one passed through their lines. Those who surrendered said that he
had taken the command, and had exposed himself to the hottest fire, and
encouraged them; telling them that the more bravely they defended
themselves, the more likely they were to obtain favourable terms. The
night before, he had advised them to accept any offer the Dervishes
might make, but on the following morning he was missing, and none could
give any account of what had become of him. The same tale is told by
all to whom I have spoken."
The story made a profound impression upon Gregory. It seemed possible
that the father, of whom he had no remembrance, might have been the
sole white survivor of Hicks's army. True, there was nothing to prove
that he was the white man who had joined the black battalion that
escaped the first day's massacre. There were other non-combatants:
Vizitelly, the artist of the Illustrated London News, and O'Donovan,
the correspondent of the Daily News. Either of these might also have
been at any other portion of the square, when the attack commenced, and
unable to join Hicks and his officers, in their final charge into the
midst of the enemy.
Still, it was at least possible that his father was the man who had
retired from the field, with the black battalion; and who had,
afterwards, so strangely disappeared. If so, what had become of him,
all these years? Had he made off in disguise, only to be murdered by
wandering bands? Had he been concealed, for months, in the hut of a
friendly tribesman? What had he been doing, since? Had he been killed,
in trying to make his way down? Had he been enslaved, and was he still
lingering on, in a wretched existence?
He could hardly hope that he had fallen into friendly hands; for, had
he been alive, he would surely have managed, with his knowledge of the
country, to make his way down; or to reach Khartoum, when it was still
held by the Egyptians.
At any rate, Gregory concluded that he might find out whether any
European had arrived there, during the siege. He went down to the
river, and took a native boat across to Khartoum. At the ceremony, on
Sunday, many natives watched the arrival of the flotilla; and some of
these might have been there, in Gordon's time. He had no great hopes of
it, but there was just a chance.
The flags were still flying over the governor's house, when he landed,
and a detachment of Egyptian troops was stationed there. A native
officer came down, when he landed.
"I have come across to question some of the natives," he said. "I
believe some are still living here."
"Oh, yes, Bimbashi! there are a good many, scattered about among the
ruins. They come in, bringing fruit and fish for sale. I think they
mostly live down by the riverside."
Gregory kept on, till he came to the huts occupied by the fishermen,
and men who cultivated small plots of ground. He found several who had
lived at Khartoum, when it was captured; and who had escaped the
general massacre, by hiding till nightfall, and then making their way
up the river, in boats. None of them could give him the information he
sought, but one suggested that he was more likely to hear from the
Greeks and Turks, who worked in the Khalifa's arsenal and foundries; as
they had been spared, for the services they would be able to render to
the Mahdi.
Returning to Omdurman, he went to the machine shop. Here work had
already been resumed, as repairs were needed by several of the
gunboats. He went up to the foreman, a man of some sixty years of age.
"You were engaged in the city during the siege, were you not?" he said,
in Arabic, with which he knew the foreman must be thoroughly
acquainted.
"Yes, sir, I had been here ten years before that."
"I am very anxious to learn whether any white man, who had survived the
battle of El Obeid, ever reached this town before its capture."
The man thought for some time.
"Yes," he said, "a white man certainly came here, towards the end of
the siege. I know, because I happened to meet him, when I was going
home from work; and he asked me the way to the governor's. I should not
have known him to be a white man, for he had a native attire; and was
as black, from exposure to the sun, as any of the Arabs. I gave him
directions, and did not ask him any questions; but it was said,
afterwards, that he was one of Hicks's officers. Later, I heard that he
went down in the steamer with Colonel Stewart."
"You did not hear his name?" Gregory asked, anxiously.
"No, sir."
"Did he talk Arabic well?"
"Extremely well. Much better than I did, at the time."
"Do you remember how long he arrived before the steamer started?"
"Not very long, sir, though I really cannot tell you how long it was."
"After you were cut off, I suppose?"
"Certainly it was, but I cannot say how long."
"No one else, here, would know more about it than you do?"
"No, sir; I should think not. But you can ask them."
He called up some of the other workmen. All knew that a white officer,
of Hicks Pasha's army, was said to have returned. One of them
remembered that he had come down once, with Gordon, to see about some
repairs required to the engines of a steamer; but he had never heard
his name, nor could he recall his personal appearance, except that he
seemed to be a man about thirty. But he remembered once seeing him,
again, on board Stewart's steamer; as they had been working at her
engines, just before she started.
After thanking the foreman, Gregory returned to the hut, where he and
two other officers of Hunter's staff had taken up their quarters. He
was profoundly depressed. This white man might well have been his
father; but if so, it was even more certain than before that he had
fallen. He knew what had been the fate of Stewart's steamer, the
remains of which he had seen at Hebbeh. The Colonel, and all with him,
had accepted the invitation of the treacherous sheik of that village,
and had been massacred. He would at least go there, and endeavour to
learn, from some of the natives, the particulars of the fate of those
on board; and whether it was possible that any of the whites could have
escaped.
After sitting for some time, in thought, he went to General Hunter's
quarters, and asked to see him. The General listened, sympathetically,
to his story.
"I never, for a moment, thought that your father could have escaped,"
he said; "but from what you tell me, it is possible that he did so,
only to perish afterwards. But I can well understand how, having learnt
so much, you should be anxious to hear more. Certainly, I will grant
your request for leave to go down to Hebbeh. As you know, that place
was taken and destroyed, by the river column under Earle; or rather
under Brackenbury, for Earle had been killed in the fight at Kirkeban.
Numerous relics were found of the massacre, but the journal Stewart was
known to have kept was not among them. Had it been there it would, no
doubt, have mentioned the survivor of Hicks's army, who was coming down
the river with him.
"The place was deserted when Brackenbury arrived. It certainly was so,
when we came up. Since then, some of the inhabitants have probably
returned; and may know of places where plunder was hidden away, on the
approach of Brackenbury's column. No doubt the offer of a reward would
lead to their production.
"You may not have to be absent long. The British regiments are to go
down at once, and several steamers will start tomorrow. I will give you
an order to go with them. You will have no difficulty in getting back,
for the Sirdar has already decided that the railway is to be carried
on, at once, from Atbara to Khartoum; and has, I believe, telegraphed
this morning that material and stores are to be sent up, at once. Most
of these will, no doubt, be brought on by rail; but grain, of which
large quantities will be required, for the use of our troops and of the
population of the town, will come on by water.
"But, no doubt, your quickest way back will be to ride to Abu Hamed,
and take the train up to Atbara."
"I will be back as soon as I can, General. I am much obliged to you,
for letting me go."
"I will tell the Sirdar that I have given you leave, and why. It is not
absolutely necessary, but it is always well that one's name should be
kept to the front."
The next day, Gregory saw the General again.
"I mentioned, to the Sirdar, that you wanted a fortnight's leave, and
told him why. He simply nodded, and said, 'Let him have a month, if he
wants it.'
"He had other things to think of; for, this morning, a small Dervish
steamer came down the White Nile. They had the Khalifa's flag flying,
and had not heard of what had taken place, till one of the gunboats ran
alongside her. Of course she surrendered, at once.
"It is a curious story they told. They left Omdurman a month ago with
the Sapphire, which carried five hundred men. The object of the voyage
was to collect grain. When they reached the old station of Fashoda,
they had been fired upon by black troops, with some white men among
them, who had a strange flag flying. The firing was pretty accurate,
for they had forty men killed and wounded; and the emir in command had
disembarked, and encamped his troops from the Sapphire on the opposite
bank, and had sent the small steamer back, to ask the Khalifa for
orders.
"The story seemed so strange, and improbable, that I went down with the
Sirdar to the boat, which had been brought alongside. There was no
doubt that it had been peppered with balls. Some of the General's staff
cut one of the bullets out of the woodwork, and these fully confirmed
the story. They were not leaden balls, or bits of old iron, but conical
nickel bullets. They could only have been fired from small-bore rifles,
so there were certainly white men at Fashoda. Of course, no one can
form any opinion as to who they are, or where they come from. They may
be Belgians from the Congo. They may--but that is most improbable--be
an expeditionary party of Italians. But Italy is withdrawing, and not
pushing forward, so I think it is out of the question that they are
concerned in the matter.
"The question seems to lie between Belgians and French, unless an
expedition has been sent up from our possessions on the great lakes.
The Dervishes in the steamer can only say that the flag is not at all
like ours; but as their ignorance of colour is profound, they give all
sorts of contradictory statements. Anyhow, it is a serious matter.
Certainly, no foreign power has any right to send an expedition to the
Nile; and as certainly, if one of them did so, our government would not
allow them to remain there; for, beyond all question, Fashoda is an
Egyptian station, and within Egyptian territory; which is, at present,
as much as to say that a foreign power, established there, would be
occupying our country."
"It seems an extraordinary proceeding, sir."
"Very extraordinary. If it were not that it seems the thing has
absolutely been done, it would seem improbable that any foreign power
could take such an extraordinary, and unjustifiable, course. It is
lucky for them, whoever they are, that we have smashed up the
Dervishes; for they would have made very short work of them, and the
nation that sent them would probably never have known their fate."