With Kitchener in the Soudan: A Story of Atbara and Omdurman by G. A. Henty (the beach read TXT) 📗

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