248 WITH KITCHENEE IN' THE SOUDAN' “I will be back as soon as I can, General. I am much obliged to you for letting me go.”

“I will tell the Sirdar that I have given you leave, and why. It is not absolutely necessary, but it is always well that one’s name should be kept to the front.”

The next day Gregory saw the General again. “I mentioned to the Sirdar that you wanted a fortnight’s leave, and told him why. He simply nodded and said, ‘ Let him have a month if he wants it.’ He had other things to think of, for this morning a small Dervish steamer came down the White Nile. They had the Khalifa’s flag flying, and had not heard of what had taken place till one of the gun-boats ran alongside her. Of course she surrendered at once. It is a curious story they told. They left Omdurman a month ago with the Sapphire, which carried flve hundred men. The object of the voyage was to collect grain. When they reached the old station of Fashoda they had been flred upon by black troops, with some white men among them, who had a strange flag flying. The firing was pretty accurate, for they had forty men killed and wounded, and the emir in command had disembarked and encamped his troops from the Sapphire on the opposite bank, and had sent the small steamer back to ask the Khalifa for orders.

The story seemed so strange and improbable that I went down with the Sirdar to the boat, which had been brought alongside. There was no doubt that it had been peppered with balls. Some of the General’s staff cut one of the bullets out of the wood-work, and these fully confirmed the story. They were not leaden balls or bits of old iron, but conical nickel bullets. They could only have been fired from smallbore rifles, so there were certainly white men at Fashoda. Of course no one can form any opinion as to who they are, or where they come from. They may be Belgians from the Congo ; they may—but that is most improbable—be an expeditionary party of Italians. But Italy is withdrawing and not pushing forward, so I think it is out of the question that they are concerned in the matter.