Chapter 18
Conquered for Life
At Wadi-Halfa, near the Second Cataract, begins the land of thirst, the Great Desert of Nubia,-a land of shifting sands that roll in eddying waves on days of storm, under a burning sky of horror and desolation, in which the tarnished sun looks like a pale moon,-a grim plain only relieved by a few oases lying far apart, where beside a niggard well, grow two or three stunted palm-trees. The Nile leaves it far on one side, at this point making an enormous bend. Through this desert travel all caravans, and all troops going from Egypt to the Sudan. The railway ended at Wadi Haifa, the further advance of the rails blocked by the waste of sand.
Kitchener, the English officer in the Egyptian service, who has been already mentioned, thought the time was come at last to avenge Gordon's death. Fourteen years had passed since the taking of Khartoum, and the reorganization of the Khedive's army was now complete. On the other side Abdullahi, the bloodthirsty, had alienated the most valiant of the tribes by his persistent efforts to establish the preeminence of the Bagaras over all the rest. After the massacre of the Batahin, of the Ashraf and the Dongolawi, had begun a systematic persecution of the Dinkas and the Djaalin.
Fadl-el-Maula was no longer in command of the Djede-diah,-the negro soldiers of the body-guard. He was now reduced to the rank of a plain Emir; but the prestige of his dead brother Abu-Anga sufficed to protect him against any extreme humiliations, saved him from death or confiscation of property. He lived in almost poverty, and had been forced to make up his mind to a diminution of his harem. On the birth of his son, he had regularized Grace's position, who became his fourth lawful wife. At the present moment he had just been thrown into prison, without being able to hazard a guess why he was sent there.
Yet in spite of all defections, the power of the Dervishes remained formidable. Apart from the Bagaras, Abdullahi still had in his service large numbers of negro soldiers, brave veterans well tried in war. Only their rifles were Remingtons, weapons originally captured from the Egyptians in the days of the late Malidi. Capital guns no doubt,-when modern improved gunpowders were all but unknown! Worse still, under the idea they were too heavy for long marches, the Khalif had them cut down,-the barrels shortened, without giving a thought to the altered trajectory that inevitably spoiled the shooting. Moreover the ammunition captured from the enemy was long ago exhausted. The Dervishes had to learn how to make powder,-old fashioned black powder according to the obsolete formulas, and after many attempts had succeeded in producing a very mediocre article. Neufeld was employed to attend to the extraction of the necessary saltpetre. Next the cartridges had to be filled, and every kitchen utensil, every copper pot in the place had been called into requisition. They possessed some artillery too, Krupp cannon of an old type; but their gunners were impatient and unskilfull and served the pieces clumsily.
Kitchener, appointed Sirdar, generalissimo of the Egyptian army, had systematically and methodically drawn recruits to his standard. All the discontented elements of Malidism were attracted to his army, in which the Djaalin formed a picked regiment. Besides he had at his disposal detachments of British troops, lancers, Highlanders and infantry. All these had long ago given up weapons of tne Remington period, and were armed with the Lee-Metford, a quick-firing magazine rifle, burning smokeless powder, while their guns were Maxims and Nordenfelds, the projectile of which will hit a man beyond the range of possible vision. After fourteen years of preparation, Kitchener set about striking the decisive blow. But he was not going to leave anything to chance. The Desert was the great factor that had given the Dervishes victory; amid its deep sands, under a burning sun, invading armies wore out their powers of endurance. Now Kitchener carried on the abortive railway from the point where it had been abandoned in face of the desert sand, and the track was pushed on from Wadi-Halfa to Abu-Hammek, where the Nile is again encountered with its comforting waters and fertile land on its banks. A few hours, and the iron horse spared the men weeks of laborious marching, transporting along with them munitions of war, and the victuals and drink the British soldier is accustomed to and without which he goes into action spiritless and depressed. By the same means gunboats were sent forward in sections, which gallantly patrolled the river between the cataracts, making a good show with excellent quick-firing guns served by picked artillerymen. Kitchener marched steadily on, and every step he advanced into the enemies' country, the expedition was followed by the iron road, the pair of rails that assured its commissariat, and in case of defeat, its retreat.
Eventually his army came in touch with the Dervishes on the Atbara. The Khalifs troops had intrenched themselves in a vast zariba, a perfect fortress of thorny tree-trunks. The batteries unlimbered before this primitive fortification, and in a few seconds the lyddite shells had swept the obstacle away. The cavalry had only to push the Dervishes on to the muzzles of Tommy Atkins' magazine rifles. The road thus cleared, the march had been resumed at a slow pace, leaving the sappers, under protection of the rearguard, time enough to lay sleepers, nail down chairs and adjust rails.
The Sirdar entered Berber in triumph, Mahmoud, the Emir he had just beaten, walking in chains beside his horse. He occupied Metemmeh, the capital town of the Djaalin, a city in ruins. Hitherto the Khalif had always ordered the Djaalin to the front against the English, and in all his vain attacks on Egypt these brave negroes had been in the vanguard acting as shields to the Bagaras. They had had enough of such treatment, and now sent messages to Wadi-Halfa, asking that arms might be sent them to be used against the Khalif. Abdullahi hearing of this from his spies, ordered an immediate attack on the rebels. The Djaalin made a gallant resistance, but the Bagaras had all the guns. On the walls of Metemmeh were still to be seen great black splotches, the traces left by smoke and soot, and on the ground heaps of calcined bones. Here it was the Bagaras had burned in batches their Djaalin prisoners. Everywhere too lay the carcases of beasts! They were the sole riches of the vanquished tribesmen, but had been remorselessly slaughtered and now strewed the streets. Camels, asses, lay dead with their throats cut; the sun had tanned their hides and whitened their bones, and the jackals and hyenas had gnawed the flesh. At these sights the men of the Djaalin regiment waved their guns and pointed fiercely Southwards, in the direction of Omdurman.
The forward march was resumed. The column had now come to the Nile again, and the gunboats protected its flank, sweeping the enemy away with shell fire the instant they dared to show themselves. Meanwhile behind the troops, the thin ribbon of iron was creeping on and on, the rails being firmly fixed in the soil of the Nubian desert. At Omdurman the necessary measures were being taken for defence. The Emirs favored an advance to meet the foe; but the Khalif preferred remaining entrenched behind the walls. However at the first shells that fell, he changed his mind,-seeing there would soon be no walls left.
The whole Dervish army sallied out from Omdurman during the night. The English occupied the village of Agaiga, near the heights of Kerreri, on their left being a conspicuous isolated peak, the Jebel Sourgham. The battle went through several successive phases, and lasted many hours. Already the English thought they had settled matters, and were advancing over the plain, which was thickly strewn with corpses. Here a Bagara had taken off his red sandals and put them under his head as a last pillow, where he lay dead, his face to the foe,-the foe he had never been able to come to grips with. Further on were mounds of human remains, masses of flesh torn to shreds by artillery fire. All along the march, Dervishes the English troops thought dead, kept springing to their feet and plunging their lances into any of the enemy within their reach. But suddenly firing broke out again in the rear, and the force had to wheel to the right about. It was the supreme effort. The Khalifs great black flag was unfurled from the mountain top, and the Dervishes threw themselves headlong on the foe, mowed down in their wild rush by the rapid fire of the English rifles. In spite of everything there were some who got to close quarters. These would fire off their Remington, burn their cartridge of bad powder and have the satisfaction of seeing an Egyptian or an English soldier fall, then die uttering a yell of triumph. The artillery swept away whole rows of men at once; but about the black flag they held their ground to the end, the last survivor waiting till the enemy was at arm's length to discharge his musket in their faces.
Kitchener's way lay open to enter Omdurman, but it was to find the town in utter confusion. It was said the Khalif had fled along with Beshir his squire and Sarah his wife. Before leaving, he had endeavoured to set fire to his harem, for rather than suffer them to fall into the enemies' hands, he had resolved to roast his four hundred wives.
But in his haste he had laid his combustibles badly and the slow-match had gone out. Nearly all the Bagaras had fallen in the battle, and the few survivors joined the Khalif in his flight. The Arabs and Negroes on the contrary determined to offer no further resistance. They saw they were beaten, and with characteristic confidence in whatever luck fate might have in store for them, thought only of making all they could out of the Englishmen.
In Fadl-el-Maula's harem the women awaited events without inordinate anxiety. On a sudden the door opened and Aisha, the huge Dinka negress, appeared on the threshold. She could barely stand, and the man's djibbeh she wore was all stained with blood. She put one knee to the ground, and lowering a gun, levelled it at Grace, crying:
"God has suffered your brethren to triumph! They are coming, coming to look for you ... But they shall never find you alive!"
The weapon trembled in her hand, as she pulled the trigger, and a nervous jerk spoiling the aim, Grace was not touched. Then dropping the gun, Aisha began crawling with the help of her hands towards the angareb where Grace lay crouching, paralyzed with terror, hissing out as she came:
"You shall die all the same; you shall never go with them ... Oh! how I hate you! If you only knew! But you can never know ... I felt it the first time, the very first time I ever saw you, do you remember?-when you came to Khartoum,-in your Uncle's house? ... I was there, among the slaves,-for slaves we were, whatever you may have called us! ... And you, ... you looked us over with a careless, indifferent look; you saw us all, and yet seemed to see nobody! But you looked at me and your eyelids trembled ... Oh! I hate you, I hate you!. . . No! it is not true; I love you! Don't you know I do? It is possible you have not guessed? ... Why! haven't I kept always near you, dogged your footsteps everywhere? Yes! yes! I love you, I love your beauty! How it stirs me, how it burns my eyes and sets all my blood boiling! ... Once only I had some satisfaction,-a poor meagre satisfaction! Eh! do you remember? when you writhed under my hands that time I held you for Fadl-el-Maula. But that was nothing! I wanted you all to myself, all to myself,-do you hear? Ah! the tortures I imagined, the new, terrific tortures I invented, all for you,-tortures so appalling you should have counted every minute an eternity! ... And my caresses! my caresses, ever more and more intimate, more and more irresistible! ... I would have fingered,-fingered your very marrow, your very bones should have cracked open! What I would have made you suffer,-agonies of pleasure so intense that screams would not have sufficed to express your pangs! ... You would have nothing to say to the other women of the harem? But you should not have put me off! Look you, I am strong, strong-built as a man! But far better than any man, I know where to strike to wake the keenest pain, set quivering the sharpest stings of pleasure! ... And you would have loved me' For pain, I tell you, is the dew that makes love bloom and blossom! Without it, passion is dull, and soon declines and dies ... Ah! my darling! the exquisite pangs I should have given you,-how sweetly in slow torment my hand would have slain you with fierce caresses and tortures never dreamed of before!"
The words came in gasps, while a red froth foamed at the negress's lips. She came on slowly but surely, crawling painfully with brief halts to recover breath. Now she was close to the bed, with one hand clutching the edge of the angareb, in the other grasping a flashing knife. Grace lay motionless, her eyes wide with horror, watching the fury's ineffectual struggles to get at her: but the woman could not raise herself from the floor, and fell back with a loud and bitter cry.
At this moment an English Lieutenant entered the room, calling out, "Miss Grace Marjoribanksl Miss Grace Marjoribanks!"
Grace signed to him to approach, not daring to get down from her angareb and step over the negress's dead body.
The Officer took her to Kitchener, to whom she had to relate the history of her adventures. The General condoled with her in courteous and sympathetic terms, saying finally:
"Weill your misfortunes are at an end now. You must forget it all like a bad dream..."
"What do you mean, General? You don't intend to take me away against my will, I suppose."
"What! Can you dream of still remaining in this country?"
"Certainly I shall remain! Why! what should I do in England? I am thirty-four,-almost an old woman. And you know the Arab proverb: Who has drunk Nile water, goes back for more! Besides, where would be the good of going? ... Then, I think differently from what I did ... Do what a woman may, she cannot alter her fate. She cannot even govern her own heart. The man who forces her to bow to his will is her master! She loves the despot who can make himself obeyed!"