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Southward, up the Nile valley and across grim deserts, lies Khartoum, the capital of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, only four days from Cairo by rail. This is a very tempting theatre for missionary enterprise, which is, however, held in check by the authorities, who decline to have their Sudan spiritually exploited and materially disturbed by futile efforts to evangelise the country.
In this position she became more fully confirmed by the Anglo-Egyptian military operations against the Soudan in 1885, under Gordon, and in 1898, under Kitchener. Outstanding differences with France were dispelled on the conclusion of the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale, and Britain was left virtually mistress of Egypt.
Accordingly, Lord Kitchener ran the risk of grave international complications by advancing upon Fashoda to meet Major Marchand. Fortunately, a temporary agreement was entered upon that the home governments should decide the question at issue, and Lord Kitchener then hoisted the Anglo-Egyptian flag south of the French settlement, and the officers fraternised over glasses of champagne.
That done, we must begin to make our plans to escape either back to Cairo or to the nearest post of the Anglo-Egyptian army." "Or the river," said Frank. "But I don't like this, for us to be free and you a prisoner." "It is the penalty for being so great a man," said the doctor merrily. "And really there is a large amount of common-sense in what our friend says.
The movement of the Anglo-Egyptian force was screened by seven squadrons of cavalry and the Horse Artillery, and Colonel Broadwood was further instructed to reconnoitre along the river and endeavour to locate the enemy. The country on either bank of the Atbara is covered with dense scrub, impassable for civilised troops.
Had it swept on and on in the great white wave the Sheikh had described, vastly overlapping the Anglo-Egyptian force, and, curling round its flanks, achieved the Baggara Emir's threat of sweeping the infidels into the river, now cumbered with the slain? For the silence was ominous; even the gunboats had ceased firing, and their guard had made no sign.
So did the scholarly researches of eminent Germans in Sinai, assisted as they were by maps which the Anglo-Egyptian authorities courteously placed at their disposal, and which formed a basis for a more detailed survey of wells and routes. But the old firm at Potsdam excelled itself in its representatives on the Palestine coast.
The Anglo-Egyptian army had not formed a quadrilateral camp, as on other nights, but had lain down to rest in the formation for attack they had assumed in the afternoon. Every fifty yards behind the thorn-bushes were double sentries. Every hundred yards a patrol with an officer was to be met.
Anglo-Egyptian officials, especially the subordinate grades, which come into more direct contact with the people, tried to counteract this by increased dignity of demeanour, but the natives now knew them en déshabillé, or thought they did, and declined to keep them on their pedestals.
The Anglo-Egyptian troops wrested from them the post of Sarras, some thirty miles south of Wady Halfa; and the efforts of the fanatics to capture the wells along desert routes far to the east of the river were bloodily repulsed. As long as Sarras, Wady Halfa, and those wells were firmly held, Egypt was safe. It was not to be for any length of time.
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