GEDAEEH 3::)a unfitness; they could be relied upon to fight, but small in number as they were, could but have little effect on the issue of a battle. All therefore agreed that, having come thus far, the safest as well as the most honourable course would be to endeavour to fight the enemy in a strong position.

Although it may be said that success justified it, no wilder enterprise was ever undertaken than that of sending thirteen hundred only partly disciplined men into the heart of the enemy’s country. Omdurman and Atbara, to say nothing of previous campaigns, had shown how desperately the Dervishes fought, and the order for the garrison of Kassala to undertake it can only have been given under an entire misconception of the circumstances, and of the strength of the army under Fadil that they would almost certainly be called upon to encounter. This was the more probable, as all the women and the property of his soldiers had been left at Gedareh when he marched away, and his men would therefore naturally wish to go there before they made any endeavour to join the Khalifa.

Such, indeed, was the fact. Fadil concealed from them the news of the disaster at Omdurman for some days, and when it became known he had difficulty in restraining his troops from marching straight for Gedareh.

“ Do you go on with us, Mr. Hilliard ? ” Colonel Parsons asked, when they had decided to start for Gedareh.

“ Yes, sir. My instructions are to go on with you, and if the town is besieged, to endeavour to get through their lines and carry the news to General Hunter if I can ascertain his whereabouts; if not, to make straight for Omdurman.

I have two fast camels which I shall leave here, and return for them with my black boy when we start.”

“We shall be glad to have you with us,” the Colonel said; “ every white officer is worth a couple of hundred men.”

As they sat and chatted Gregory asked how the force had crossed the Atbara.

“ It was a big job,” Colonel Parsons said. “ The river was