306 WITH KITCHENER IN THE SOUDAN a rider, and there would be a search for you; but if you and your horse are missing it will be supposed that you have ridden on to Omdurman to give notice of our coming, and none will think more of the matter.’

As soon as the camp was asleep I said good-bye to Abu, and took my horse by the reins and led him into the desert half a mile away, then I mounted and rode fast. The stars were guide enough, and in three hours I reached the Nile.

I took off the horse’s saddle and bridle and left him to himself, then I crept out and cut a bundle of rushes, and swam into the stream with them. After floating down the river for an hour I saw the light of a few flres on the right bank, and guessed that this was a Dervish force beleaguering Khartoum from that side. I drifted on for another hour, drawing closer and closer to the shore until I could see walls and forts; then I stripped off my Dervish frock and swam ashore. I had, during the time we had been on the journey, abstained from staining my skin under my garments, in order that I might be recognized as a white man as soon as I bared my arms.

‘‘I lay down till it was broad daylight, and then walked up to the foot of a redoubt. There were shouts of surprise from the black soldiers there as I approached. I shouted to them in Arabic that I was an Englishman, and two or three of them at once ran down the slope and aided me to climb it. I was taken, at my request, to General Gordon, who was surprised indeed when I told him that I was a survivor of Hicks’s force and had been living nine months at El Obeid.

‘ You are heartily welcome, sir,’ he said; ‘ but I fear that you have come into an even greater danger than you have left, for our position here is well-nigh desperate. For months I have been praying for aid from England, and my last news was that it was just setting out, so I fear there is no hope that it will reach me in time. The government of England will have to answer before God for their desertion of me, and of, the jJoor people, here whom they sent me to protect