What has happened? Is there another revolt in the west? Do the
Abyssinians threaten Gallabat? Have the black troops mutinied; or is it
only some harem quarrel?
The parade is over. The troops march back to the arsenal. The rifles
are collected, and the warriors disperse to their homes. Many hurry to
the market-place to make purchases, to hear the latest rumour, or to
watch the executions - for there are usually executions. Others stroll to
the Suk-er-Rekik and criticise the points of the slave girls as the
dealers offer them for sale. But the Khalifa has returned to his house,
and his council have been summoned. The room is small, and the ruler sits
cross-legged upon his couch. Before him squat the Emirs and Kadis. Yakub
is there, with Ali-Wad-Helu and the Khalifa Sherif. Only the Sheikh-ed-Din
is absent, for he is a dissolute youth and much given to drinking.
Abdullah is grave and anxious. A messenger has come from the north.
The Turks are on the move. Advancing beyond their frontier, they have
established themselves at Akasha. Wad Bishara fears lest they may attack
the faithful who hold Firket. In itself this is but a small matter,
for all these years there has been frontier fighting. But what follows
is full of menacing significance. The 'enemies of God' have begun to
repair the railway - have repaired it, so that the train already runs
beyond Sarras. Even now they push their iron road out into the desert
towards their position at Akasha and to the south. What is the object of
their toil? Are they coming again? Will they bring those terrible white
soldiers who broke the hearts of the Hadendoa and almost destroyed the
Degheim and Kenana? What should draw them up the Nile? Is it for plunder,
or in sheer love of war; or is it a blood feud that brings them?
True, they are now far off. Perchance they will return, as they returned
before. Yet the iron road is not built in a day, nor for a day, and of a
surety there are war-clouds in the north.
CHAPTER IV: THE YEARS OF PREPARATION
In the summer of 1886, when all the troops had retreated to Wady Halfa
and all the Soudan garrisons had been massacred, the British people
averted their eyes in shame and vexation from the valley of the Nile.
A long succession of disasters had reached their disgraceful culmination.
The dramatic features added much to the bitterness and nothing to the
grandeur of the tragedy. The cost was heavy. Besides the pain produced by
the death of General Gordon, the heavy losses in officers and men, and the
serious expenditure of public money, the nation smarted under failure and
disappointment, and were, moreover, deeply sensible that they had been
humiliated before the whole world. The situation in Egypt was scarcely
more pleasing. The reforms initiated by the British Administrators had as
yet only caused unpopularity.
