AFTER THE BATTLE 239 gether with Lieutenant Clerk of the 21st Lancers. We were all in excellent spirits, and fully expected to reach the Atbara in about thirty hours. As steam and current bore us. rapidly past the battlefield in the twilight, the vultures circling over the distant plain and the broken zeriba by the river's bank were the only visible signs which remained to tell of our momentous victory.

We were not destined to reach the Atbara in thirty hours! The sun had set, and the vets had been advised to tie up to the banks for the night; but the obstinate fellow denied the necessity of any stoppage for another hour or two, so we went tearing down the stream at a tremendous pace. Dinner was just over —a curious meal, supported almost entirely by voluntary contributions of tinned meats, rice, jams, etc.—when, without a moment's. warning, a tremendous shock sent everything and everybody sprawling over the deck. Loud cries of ‘‘We are going over” came from the river, and through the semi-darkness one could see that the troop barge had been wrenched from its lashings by the shock, and was heeling over in a terrible manner, Every-