172 WITH KITCHEHEE IN' THE SOHDAN sale of these he would he able at the end of the war to buy a piece of land and settle down among his own people. Yill you kindly report my capture to Colonel Wingate or General Hunter % Thanking you for your kindness to me, I remain, Yours faithfully, GREGORY HILLIARD. —In my cabin is a tin box containing documents of importance to me. I shall be greatly obliged if you will take charge of these until—as I hope will he the case—I rejoin you.

He handed the paper to Zaki, who took his hand and raised it to his forehead with tears in his eyes. “ I go because you order me, master,” he said in a broken voice, but I would a thousand times rather remain and share your fate, whatever it might be.” Then he turned and abruptly left the tent. Twice that day Gregory had received food from a female slave of the harem. Although he knew that he should iniss Zaki greatly, he was very glad that he had been sent away, for he felt that, although for the time he had been reprieved, his position was very precarious, and that his servant’s would have been still more so. A white prisoner was a personage of some consequence, but the death of a Jaalin was a matter that would disturb no one ; thousands of them had been massacred, and one more or less could not matter at all. But however much the Dervishes might hate a white infidel, it would be a serious matter for even the most powerful Emir to harm a prisoner under the protection of the harem of the Khalifa’s son.

Mahmud had been very popular among them, but his position had been gravely shaken by the events of the last six months. Having unlimited confidence in themselves, the Baggara had seen with increasing fury the unopposed advance of the Egyptians. They could not understand why they should not have been allowed, after the capture of Metemmeh, to march across the desert to Merawi and anni-