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All the Soudanese thereupon with a loud shout rushed upon the entrenchment, stormed it, and hunted the Dervishes into the houses. In the street-fighting which followed, the numbers of the troops prevailed. The advance scarcely paused until the river bank was reached, and by 7.30 Abu Hamed was in the possession of the Egyptian forces.
How many poor creatures had been lost in the surf it was impossible to say, and, as Hamed had not accompanied them, no information could be gained from the blacks. Adair, indeed, had now to consider how they were to get off again.
"I brought enough for a week with me. I thought that I might be detained two or three days, here, and be obliged to make the journey by land to Abu Hamed." "I have not asked you what you were doing at this out of the way place, and how long you have been here." "I only landed this morning. I came down to search for some relics.
Several gunboats and steamers passed us during the day going south, including one upon which were a number of correspondents who were enjoying their dolce far niente under awnings in a breezy draught with inexhaustible supplies of filtered and mineral waters. We saw the Grenadier Guards, the Lincolns, and other battalions pass us, and steam slowly up stream towards Wady Hamed.
The Dongola garrisons must be weakened to provide a force for Berber. The Dervishes had the advantage of occupying the interior of the angle which the Nile forms at Abu Hamed.
I had frequently heard, too, of the fearful cruelties which were practised on slaves who attempted to escape from their Arab masters, so I could not help thinking of those we should be doomed to suffer were we to be delivered up to Sheikh Hamed.
Making a détour into the desert on quitting Abu Kru, I left Colonel Martin's column, and rode on with one native servant to Wady Hamed. As a matter of fact, the camp was neither at Wad Habeshi nor Wady Hamed, but between the two. The latter, however, was the official name.
"Just so; but before zat, I mean," said the Pasha, with a keen glance. Lancey was a bold and an honest man. He would not condescend to prevaricate. "I'm wery sorry, your your Pashaship, but, to tell the plain truth, I never did 'ear of you before that." "Well, zat matters not'ing. I do go now to sup vid von friend, Hamed Pasha he is called. You go vid me. Go, get ready."
Hamed would neither deny nor confirm the legend. "I dunno what people you! I bin tell-straight my yarn go one time like wind to Medina. What more you want? I dunno what kind people you!" One mystery at a time is enough for Hamed. Hamed now deals in oysters. In the trade he had a partner a fair lad of Scandinavian origin named Adolphus.
The Pasha shouted the last word, and then fell back in fits of laughter; while the terrified man fled to the hen-house, and drove its occupants frantic in his wild attempts to cleanse their Augean stable. It was not until midnight that Sanda Pasha and Lancey, taking leave of Hamed and his guests, returned home. "Come, follow me," said the Pasha, on entering the palace.
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