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You see, on our way up to Khartoum if we defeat the Mahdi's troops which we certainly shall do all the country will no doubt submit, and there would be in the first place the chance of his being given up to us, and in the second of his escape." "It is possible," the officer agreed, "but I certainly would not build on that.
Of course their leader's position depends upon his army more than upon his reputation of being the prophet upon whom the last Mahdi's garment has fallen." "I suppose so," said Frank. "Mahomet's great power came from the sword." "Of course," replied Harry. "No wonder that, with an army to back him, he made so many converts.
A wealth of printed and manuscript books and papers in Arabic characters were scattered, torn, and thrown into a shed. The kitchens, stables and outhouses were odorously barbaric in squalor. They were in strange contrast to any of the rooms in the rabbit warren of attached dwelling-places within the Khalifa's private compound. Around the Mahdi's tomb were great splashes of human blood.
These men rose against the great Mahdi as well as against me and my friend whom you have saved. News of the revolt was sent to Khartoum in the night; the Mahdi's chief officer rode over here this day and gave the orders himself that these prisoners should die. He was there to order each punishment himself. The great Hakim asks me to let him save these men.
He said that this could not be, that the greater part of the traders had been killed, and that all who remained were now zealous followers of the Mahdi. Lupton Bey was held as a slave by the Mahdi himself, and had to run before him when he rode. There would be no possibility of releasing him or the others in the Mahdi's hands.
It was, in fact, owing to himself that the sheik was now in his present position. It was true that the Arab had refused to give him up to the Mahdi's people at Metemmeh, not from any love towards him, but of his own obstinate and headstrong disposition.
General Graham, left in command on the Red Sea littoral, was allowed to take action against the Mahdi's lieutenant who was threatening Suakim, and who was driven back with heavy loss; but he might not follow up the victory. The English Government hoped to withdraw the garrisons in safety, without force of arms.
I have wondered at it a hundred times as I sat under El Mahdi's nose with my feet dangling over the side of the boat. We stopped on the slope where the boat landed. Jud threw back his shoulders and shouted; and someone answered from the other side, "Who-ee!" a call that is said to reach farther than any other human sound. It came high up over the water, clear enough, but as from a great distance.
Gordon was avenged. Of the Dervish host, the remnant were scattered fugitives. The Mahdi's cause, the foulest and most bloodstained tyranny that had ever existed, transforming as it did a flourishing province into an almost uninhabited desert, was crushed forever; and it was his patient and unsparing labour, his wonderful organization, that had been the main factor in the work.
To have failed when success was within his grasp seemed too terrible to think of. It must be one of the mahdi's devices to stop the advance of our troops, so he went on till he could command a proper view of the town.
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