Osman Azrak,
the valiant Bishara, Yakub, and scores whose strange names have not
obscured these pages, but who were, nevertheless, great men of war,
lay staring up at the stars. Yet those who remained never wavered in their
allegiance. Ali-Wad-Helu, whose leg had been shattered by a shell splinter,
was senseless with pain; but the Sheikh-ed-Din, the astute Osman Digna,
lbrahim Khalil, who withstood the charge of the 21st Lancers, and others
of less note rallied to the side of the appointed successor of Mohammed
Ahmed, and did not, even in this extremity, abandon his cause. And so all
hurried on through the gathering darkness, a confused and miserable
multitude - dejected warriors still preserving their trashy rifles,
and wounded men hobbling pitifully along; camels and donkeys laden with
household goods; women crying, panting, dragging little children; all in
thousands - nearly 30,000 altogether; with little food and less water to
sustain them; the desert before them, the gunboats on the Nile,
and behind the rumours of pursuit and a broad trail of dead and dying
to mark the path of flight.
Meanwhile the Egyptian cavalry had already started on their
fruitless errand. The squadrons were greatly reduced in numbers.
The men carried food to suffice till morning, the horses barely enough to
last till noon. To supplement this slender provision a steamer had been
ordered up the river to meet them the next day with fresh supplies.
The road by the Nile was choked with armed Dervishes, and to avoid these
dangerous fugitives the column struck inland and marched southward towards
some hills whose dark outline showed against the sky.
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