Sheikh Toukh Ibrahim, which is about sixty miles from Khartoum. He found there a thousand men and a garrison from the Baggara tribe, all armed. These threatened them with fighting if they settled in that land. Sheikh Toukh Ibrahim was with the slaves, so the Mahdi sent him there to prevent Colonel Stewart from reaching him. As for Stewart, he raised the flag of peace in his bag, and tried to meet with the leaders of the rebels and talk to them. But when he despaired of that and the deadline set for him by Gordon Pasha passed, he returned to Khartoum and reported what he had heard and seen. On the second day of March, Gordon returned and sent him to the shores adjacent to Khartoum, instructing him to proclaim peace and inform the inhabitants that Gordon intended only good for them. Their words were of no avail, and Kaad returned first. After ten days, the soldiers began to attack Khartoum. Four thousand of them advanced to the bank of the Nile and intercepted between Khartoum and Halfaya, a village to its north, where eight hundred soldiers were encamped. One day they attacked three brigades of Gordon's soldiers as they were cutting wood, and they killed one hundred or one hundred and fifty of them and captured eight boats. They took the Nile River as a rampart and fortified themselves on its shores, making it impossible for Gordon to count the garrison besieged in Halfaya without fighting or bloodshed. He sent one thousand two hundred fighters in boats, and they returned with the garrison, leaving only five hundred of the enemy, seventy camels, eighteen horses, and a small amount of weapons and livestock. The enemy remained in control of Halfaya, so Gordon relied on expelling them from there. He sent two thousand fighters against them on the morning of the sixteenth of March. The enemy was spread out along the Blue Nile for a distance of two miles until it reached a sandy waterfall.