A PRISONER 13 hilate the infidels assembled there. It was true that these had repulsed the force defending Dongola, but this was a comparatively small body, arid it was the gun-boats and not the Egyptian troops who had forced them to evacuate the town. The fall of Abu Hamed had added to their discontent, and they were eager to march with all speed to Berber to join the five thousand men comprising its garrison, and to drive the invaders back across the Nile. But they had been kept inactive by the orders of the Khalifa and by the want of stores. They had for months been suffering great privations, and while remaining in enforced inactivity they had known that their enemy’s strength was daily increasing, and that what could have been accomplished with the greatest of ease in August had now become a very serious business. Mahmud had chafed at the situation in which he found himself placed by his father’s refusal to support him or to allow him to take any action. This had soured his temper, and he had taken to drinking heavily—he had become more harsh with his men, more severe in the punishment inflicted for any trifling disobedience of orders. Although no thought that the rule of the Khalifa could be seriously threatened entered their minds, fanatical as they were, they could not but feel some uneasiness at the prospect.

A great army was gathering at Berber ; Kassala was in the hands of the British, and the forces that had been beleaguering it had been defeated with heavy loss; Abyssinia had leagued itself against them; the insurrection of the Jaalin had been crushed, but there were signs of unrest in Kordofan and other parts. Of course all this would be put right. An army of sixty thousand men was at Omdurman, and this with Mahmud’s command would suffice to sweep away all their enemies. Their enthusiasm would never have wavered had they been called upon for action ; but these months of weary waiting and of semi-starvation without the acquisition of any booty or plunder—for little indeed had been obtained at the capture of Metemmeh— sapped their energy, and the