A FINE OLD SHEIKH. 21 wonder that the tremendous fire we were keeping up had so little effect. When they got within eighty yards the fire of the guards and mounted infantry began to take good effect, and a huge pile of dead rose in front of them. Then, to my astonishment, the enemy took ground to their right, as if on parade, so as to envelope the rear of the square. I remember thinking, " By Jove, they will be into the square!" and almost the next moment I saw a fine old sheikh on horseback plant his banner in the centre of the square behind the camels. He was at once shot down, falling on his banner. He turned out to be Musa, emir of the Duguaim Arabs from Kordofan. I had noticed him in the advance with his banner in one hand and a book of prayers in the other, and never saw anything finer. The old man never swerved to the right or left, and never ceased chanting his prayers until he had planted his banner in our square. If any man deserved a place in the Moslem paradise, he did. When I saw the old sheikh in the square and heard the wild uproar behind the camels I drew my revolver; for directly the sheikh fell the Arabs began running in under the camels to the front part of the square. Some of the rear rank now faced about and began firing. By this fire Herbert Stewart's horse was shot, and as he fell three Arabs ran at him.

I was close to his horse's tail, and disposed of the one nearest to me, about three paces off, and the others were, I think, killed by the mounted-infantry officers close by. Almost immediately afterwards the enemy retired, and loud and long cheering broke out from the square. . . . They retired slowly, and for a short time hesitated in the valley before they made their final bolt. During this period of excitement groups of three to five Arabs, who had feigned death, would start up from the slain and rush wildly at the square. They were met by a heavy fire, but so badly directed that several of them got right up to the bayonets. The men did not quiet down until the square was re-formed on the gravel slope, about fifty yards in advance of the spot where it had stood to meet the attack. Many of the officers and men now went out to bring in water-skins and ammunition-boxes from the camels which had been killed. Curious how one's feelings get blunted