A FUGITIVE 267 I I f; r “ It is now five days since the battle. It cannot be called a battle. It was not fighting; it was a massacre. The men, after three days’ incessant fighting, were exhausted and wornout, half-mad with thirst, half-mutinous at being brought into the desert, as they said, to die ; thus, when the Dervishes rushed down in a mass the defence was feeble. Almost before' we knew what had happened the enemy had burst in on one side of the square. Then all was wild confusion—camels and Dervishes, flying Egyptians, screaming campfollowers, were all mixed in confusion. The other sides of the square were also attacked. Some of our men were firing at those in their front, others turning round and shooting into the crowded mass in the square. I was with a black regiment on the side opposite to where they burst in. The white officer who had been in command had fallen ill, and had been sent back a few days after we left Khartoum, and as I had been for weeks before that aiding him to the best of my powers, and there were no other officers to spare, Hicks asked me to take his place. As I had done everything I could for the poor fellows’ comfort on the march, they had come to like me and to obey my orders as promptly as those of their former commander.

“ As long as the other two sides of the square stood firm, I did so; but they soon gave way. I saw Hicks with his staff charge into the midst of the Dervishes, and then lost sight of them. Seeing that all was lost, I called to my men to keep together, to march off in regular order, and repel all assaults, as this was the only hope there was of getting free.

They obeyed my orders splendidly. Two or three times the Dervishes charged upon them, but the blacks were as steady as rocks, and their volleys were so fatal that the enemy finally left us alone, preferring to aid in the slaughter of the panicstricken Egyptians, and to share the spoil. We made for the wells. Each man drank his fill ; those who had water-bottles filled them. We then marched on towards El Obeid, but before nightfall the Dervish horse had closed up round us.