WARS OF THE NINETIES 104 British and Soudanese with a withering fire at close quarters. Even when they were driven out they retired slowly anddoggedly. " Some of these Baggara were splendid," wrote a British officer. "They got out of the trenches, shook their rifles in your face, and then turned and walked slowly away,not trying tohurry." Here some of the heaviest loss of the day occurred. There was a check, but it was only for a moment. Heedlessof danger anddeath, the Sirdar's men, black and white,mingled together, leaped and scrambled over the barrier, and then rifle and bayonet began their deadly work again.

was meanwhile trying to get across the river. But the volleys ofLewis'sbattalions swept them down. They fell in heaps in the sandy hollow and along the margins of the shining pools in the river bed. Some reached the shelter of the scrub 'on the west bank, and tried to gain the desertbeyond. But now Broadwood's squadrons and the camelcorps dashedforward, crossed the river above the camp, and, gaining the open desert, charged the fugitives,spearing andshooting those whofought and gathering a crowd of prisoners whothrew down their arms.

Less fortunate werethose ofthe fugitives who MAJOR C V. F. TOWNSHEND. {Photo: Bourne &* Shepherd_ India.)

And now thebattle was all but over. It was hardly twenty minutes since the charge had begun,and as therush ofbayonetsswept through androundMahmoud'scentralcitadel, the dogged resistance of the Dervishes ceased. What was left of them was driven over the work at the backof the camp andinto the bed of theAtbara. Still evenso,desperateknots ofmenheld out in isolated huts and underground shelters. Some refused quarter, because in their fanatic fury they preferred to die fighting. Others did not believe in the sincerity of the victors, and expected, if" they laid down their arms, to be slaughtered in cold blood— treated, in fact, as they themselves would have dealt with the prisoners of a lost battle. So there was yet somewildworkbefore the camp was cleared of the enemy. The mass of the defeatedDervishes werehunted downby the Jaalin friendlies. Out on flank andrear of the Sirdar's line a crowd of them had eagerly watched the fight, and now with a yell of triumph they joinedinthe pursuit. Theyhad the massacre of Metemneh to avenge, and thev made no prisoners. Cold steel and shot put an end to all the fugitive Dervishes they overtook.

In the centralfort of the zerebasome soldiers of the10th Soudanese approached a hut, which was half excavated underground— one ot the numerous Dervish bomb-proofs. As they came up an emir rushed out, and was shot down as he ran. He was afterwardsrecognised as the Emir Seniussi, Mahmoud's second in command. As the Soudanese closed in upon the entrance to the shelter, a boy appeared at the door,holding up his hand andbegging for quarter tor himsefl