time it took to fetch the camel-corps the Dervishes must have lurked in the bush eating biscuits and drinking the whisky of the infidel. The Sirdar's soda-water was plainly returned empties, so that they would have found the whisky strong; the sardines, not knowing the nature of tinned meats, they had thrown away. We waited to report to the Bimbashi.

Presently the convoy crept up, a confusion of vague necks and serpent heads, waving like tentacles. The Bimbashi had given his horse to an orderly, and was sleeping peacefully on his camel. Now we had found among the scattered camel-loads a wineglass, broken in the stem, but providentially intact in the bowl. Also we had bought for a great price at Fort Atbara four eggs, and had whisky wherein to break them. So the Bimbashi slipped off his camel all in one piece, and we lunched.

By now the damned sun was taking his hand off us. We were slipping through his fingers; he was low down behind us, and his rays sprawled into larger and longer shadows. Then he went down in a last sullen fusion of gold. The camels, feeling themselves checked, flopped down where they stood; the drivers flopped down beside them, and bobbed their heads in the approximate direction of Mecca. They might well give thanks; with sunset the world had come to life again. A slight air sprang up, and a gallop fanned it to a grateful breeze. Soon the eastern sky became a pillar of dust; the horses in

camp were being led to water. The great fight was still timed for the day after to-morrow, and another twelve hours of sunlessness were before us.

The camp was just as we had left it, all but for one piece of news: the cavalry had had a fight, and had fought well against every arm of the enemy. It was their guns, not our own, we had heard nearly forty miles away at Fort Atbara. General Hunter was in command of the reconnaissance, and when General Hunter goes out to look at the enemy you may be sure he will look at him if he has to jump over his zariba to do it. Leaving the supporting battalion of infantry behind, the eight squadrons of cavalry with eight Maxims rode to the front of Mahmud's entrenchment. Last time he had made no sign of life. This time the first appearance brought out 700 cavalry. These were pushed back, but next came infantry, swarming like ants out of the zariba till the desert was black with them. They were estimated at some 1500; they opened fire, not effectively. Then came a bang to the rearward: he was firing his guns. And on each flank, meanwhile, emerged from the bush beside the entrenchment his encircling cavalry to cut ours off.

"It was Maiwand over again, only properly done," said one of the men who saw it. The Maxims opened fire on both cavalry and infantry, knocking many over, though the Dervishes were always in open order. And when it was time to go the Baggara horsemen were

by this time across our true line of retirement. Broadwood Bey ordered his troopers to charge. Behind his English leaders-the Bey himself, who always leads every attack, and Bimbashis le Gallais and Perssethe despised unwarlike fellah charged and charged home, and the Baggara lord of the Sudan split before him. Bimbashi Persse was wounded in the left forearm by a bullet fired from horseback; six troopers were killed and ten wounded. The loss of the Dervishes by lance, and especially by Maxim bullet, was reckoned at near 200.

Our seventeen casualties were a light price to pay for such a brilliant little fight, to say nothing of the information gained, and above all, the vindication of the Egyptian trooper. That the fellah was fearless of bullet and shell all knew; now he had shown his indifference to cold steel also. The cavalry mess was a hum of cheerfulness that night, and well it might be. The officers were all talking at once for joy: the troopers riding their horses down to the pool moved with a swing that was not there before. For the dogged, up-hill, back-breaking, heart-breaking work of fifteen years had come to bear fruit.

And cheerfulness spread to the whole army also: next morning-the 5th-we were off again, this time. to Umdabieh, seven miles across the desert. The bush at Abadar was almost jungle-full of green sappy plants and creepers, a refreshment to camels, but a prospective hotbed of fever for men. Everybody was

getting very sick of the Atbara, which had been such a paradise of green when we first camped on it. We missed the ever-blowing breeze of the Nile: the night was a breathless oven and the day a sweaty stewpan. The Atbara seemed even getting sick of itself: day by day it dropped till now it was no river at all, but a string of shallow befouled pools. All longed for the fatherly Nile again.

So once more the squares marched forth before daylight, and black dusk lowered under the rising sun. Umdabieh was a novelty for an Atbara camp, in that a few mud huts marked the place whence the Dervishes had blotted out a village. The river was punier than ever and the belt of bush thin; lucky was the man whose quarters included a six-foot dom-palm to lay his head under. I spent both afternoons at Umdabieh chasing a patch of shadow round and round a tree. We did nothing on the 6th, for on the evening of the 7th we were to march, and to fight on Good Friday.

140

XVII.

THE BATTLE OF THE ATBARA.

As the first rays of sunrise glinted on the desert pebbles, the army rose up and saw that it was in front of the enemy. All night it had moved blindly, in faith. At six in the evening the four brigades were black squares on the rising desert outside the bushes of Umdabieh camp, and they set out to march. Hard gravel underfoot, full moon overhead, about them a coy horizon that seemed immeasurable yet revealed nothing, the squares tramped steadily for an hour. Then all lay down, so that the other brigades were swallowed up into the desert, and the faces of the British square were no more than shadows in the white moonbeams. The square was unlocked, and first the horses were taken down to water, then the men by half-battalions. We who had water ate some bully-beef and biscuit, put our heads on saddle-bags, rolled our bodies in blankets, and slept a little.

The next thing was a long rustle about us, stealing in upon us, urgently whispering us to rise and mount