The Officers On
Board - Among Whom Was Keppel, The Commander Of The Whole Flotilla -
Had Scarcely Time To Leap From The Wreck, And With Difficulty Made Their
Way To The Shore, Where They Were Afterwards Found Very Cold And Hungry.
The Sirdar Received The News At Royan.
His calculations were disturbed by
the loss of a powerful vessel; but he had allowed for accidents, and in
consequence accepted the misfortune very phlegmatically.
The days of
struggling warfare were over, and the General knew that he had
a safe margin of strength.
The other catastrophe afflicted the Khalifa, and its tale was brought to
the advancing army by the Intelligence spies, who to the last - even when
the forces were closing - tried to pass between them. Not content with
building batteries along the banks, Abdullah, fearing the gunboats,
had resolved to mine the river. An old officer of the old Egyptian army,
long a prisoner in Omdurman, was brought from his chains and ordered to
construct mines. Two iron boilers were filled with gunpowder, and it was
arranged that these should be sunk in the Nile at convenient spots.
Buried in the powder of each was a loaded pistol with a string attached to
the trigger. On pulling the string the pistol, and consequently the mine,
would be exploded. So the Khalifa argued; nor was he wrong. It was resolved
to lay one mine first. On the 17th of August the Dervish steamer Ismailia
moved out into the middle of the Nile, carrying one of the boilers fully
charged and equipped with pistol detonator.
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