138 THE DOWNFALL OF THE DERVISHES an anxious bray of diabolical energy, which reached the long ears of its companions, and made matters worse than before.

At Sururab, as before, precautions were taken against night attack. The order went round that lights were to be extinguished and tents ' struck. Everyone lay down to rest as he was, in his clothes, and officers slept with their swords and revolvers buckled on. Most of us, I think, expected that the enemy, if they refrained from attack, would at anyrate harass us by “sniping” into our camp during the darkness. Nothing would have been easier, for, with the exception of a few native spies, every soul in the army was within the zeriba, and there was a quantity of scrub just along the river north of the camp which would have afforded excellent cover for Dervish sharp-shooters. Against “sniping,” little, as a rule, can be done. No form of retaliation is possible if the “snipers” are well concealed ; one simply has to sit still and take one’s chance.

Of course in our own case, camped as we were in an absolutely flat plain, not commanded by any rising ground, the risks from sniping were not considerable. In the frontier wars of India,