198 WITH KITCHENEK IN THE SOUDAN board in the middle of a battle and pick up a woman without saying a word to anyone of what he was doing, and that with the boat still steaming ahead. Of course your man told us that it was Mahmud’s wife you had saved, and that she had taken you under her protection, but I did not expect that among those fanatics your life would be spared. Mow tell us all about your adventures, and how you got down here just in time to see our fellows enter in triumph. I suppose you managed to give them the slip somehow ? ” Gregory then told his story. When he had concluded. Captain Keppel said: ‘Well, you have the luck of the old one! Eirst you have got hold of as faithful a fellow as is to be found in all Egypt or anywhere else, and in the second place you have been in the battle of Atbara, while we have been kicking our heels here and fuming at being out of it altogether, except for our bloodless capture of Shendy. So you say the Sirdar blew you up ? I am not surprised at that. You know the story of the man who fell overboard in the old flogging days, and the captain sentenced him to two dozen lashes for leaving the ship without orders.”

don’t think he was really angry, for when I went to him the next evening he was a good deal milder. Of course he did say again that I had done wrong, but not in the same tone as before ; and he seemed a good deal interested in what I told him about Mahmud, and how my boy had risked his life to rescue me and had succeeded almost by a miracle. He said there is a lot of good in these black fellows if one could but get at it. They have never had a chance yet, but, given good administration and the suppression of all tribal feuds with a stem hand, they might be moulded into anything.”

And are you coming back to us now, Mr. Hilliard ? ” “ I have no idea. I don’t suppose anything will be settled for a time. There is not likely to be much doing anyway, except on the railway, and even your gun-boats will have an easy time of it, as there is not an enemy left on this side of the sixth cataract. The 'Dervishes who escaped are pretty