A GENERAL ATTACK. 237 placed at a serious disadvantage. The officer in charge of the store had posted his guards, retired to his tent and gone to bed, the guard was sleeping in the guard tent, and the sentries were pacing up and down listening to the sound of the firing a mile and a half away, and not suspecting that any Arabs would come from the expanse of desert on the north side of tlie store, which was commanded by the guns of the ships. A dark figure suddenly came out from the shadow of the pier, and to the challenge "Who goes there.'" the reply came "Friend," probably from the gigantic negro, who had, no doubt, learned a few words of English when he worked at the Avharf at Suakim. At anyrate, while the sentry hesitated the black was upon him and cut him down with one of those terrible two-handed swords which, wielded by powerful arms, will cut half through wood and metal of a rifle stock, and will shear off a head at a single blow. Another sentry, who ran up to help his comrade, was also killed, and about fifty Arabs, who had by that time crept round the shore under shadow of the pier, bounded forward and made a rush for the guard tent. But the men inside were not of the stuff to be taken so easily. They were men of the Berkshire Regiment, and though there were but fifteen of them, and in the desperate struggle that ensued one was killed and nine were wounded, they closed with the enemy, who, finding that they were being beaten, ran from the tent, and skirting the camp, which they entered at another point, rushed through the store stabbing at all they came near; and finally retreated, carrying with them their dead and wounded. But the body of their leader, the gigantic Abdul Ahad, who had been killed by a bayonet thrust, they left behind in their haste, for they had heard the sound of a boat being lowered from the Dolpliin, and at the same moment the electric light flashed out. It appears that a rumour, of course unfounded, had reached the rebel camp that the Sikhs burned the bodies of their slain enemies; and it was reported that Osman Digma, who bitterly lamented the loss of his standard-bearer, offered not only to pay a considerable sum of money, but to put an end to all further night attacks, if the body were restored to him, as it is regarded as a reproach to an Arab to be called "a son of a burned father."

The attempts of small parties of the enemy to crawl into the camp were continued, and on two or three occasions they succeeded in getting into a tent after watching the sentry to the end of his beat, and having stabbed the men of the guard who were lying asleep, vanished in the black Egyptian darkness before the death screams of their victims had ceased to startle and horrify the camp. Major De Cosson says: "The nearly naked Hadendowas, with bare feet and greased skins, as dusky as the night, crept and glided on their faces along every hollow and gully, carefully taking advantage of each bush or tuft of reeds that could screen their approach, and, if alarmed, lying perfectly still after casting the sand with a rapid noiseless motion over their prostrate bodies, so that the keenest eye could