242 WITH KITCHENEK IN' THE SOUDAN where the majority of the Dervish prisoners were confined.

Addressing a man of some five-and-forty years, he asked him in Arabic whether many among the prisoners had fought against Hicks at El Obeid.

The man hesitated. “ I am not asking on the part of the Sirdar,” Gregory said ; ‘and you may be sure that if no punishment is inflicted against those who have fought against us now, there can be no thought of punishment for a thing that happened so many years ago. My father was, I believe, one of the English officers killed there; but as he spoke Arabic well it is just possible he was not killed, but, like Slatin and Heufeld, was kept as a slave, in case he might be useful.”

“ There are many here who fought against Hicks,” the native said. “I myself fought there, and nearly all the Baggara who are as old as I am were there also. I have never heard of a white man who escaped death. When we broke into the square the English General and his officers charged into the middle of us, and all fell. I was not close at the time, but I saw their bodies an hour afterwards.”

“ My father was not a fighting officer ; he was the interpreter, and may not have been near the others. When the attack by your people was made, I have heard that one of the Soudanese regiments held together and marched away, and that there was a white officer with them.”

That was so. Two days afterwards we surrounded them. They fought hard, and at last, when we had lost many men, we offered that if they would surrender and become the Mahdi’s men they would be spared. Most of them did so, just as some of our tribesmen taken by you at Atbara have now taken service with you.”

But the white officer—what became of him ? ” “T cannot say,” the native said. “I have no memory of him. He may have fallen before they surrendered—who can say? Certainly I do not remember a white man being killed after they did so. I will ask others who were there, and to-morrow will tell you what they say.”