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"He saved my life, and did many great services to us. "What say you, Father? I am ready to die if you will it; but as the Khalifa is dead, and the cause of Mahdism lost, I see no reason, and assuredly no disgrace, in submitting to the will of Allah." "So be it," Khatim said. "I have never thought of surrendering to the Turks, but as it is the will of Allah, I will do so." He turned to his men.
The fifteen years' campaign against Mahdism was nigh over, but not quite concluded, with the victory of Omdurman. On receiving the check from the gunboats, Fadl and his dervishes retreated up the Blue Nile to where they had come from, their own country upon the borders of Abyssinia. News seems to have reached them of Colonel Parsons' advance, and it became a race for Gedarif.
Once the foe they leagued to plunder and kill had been disposed of, they turned and rent each other. Abdullah being a Taaisha, he, as a prop to his own pretensions, set them in authority over all the races of the Soudan. One by one, however, Arab clansmen and blacks repented and deserted Mahdism. The time was ripe for ending the mad mutiny against government and civilisation.
But with a couple of brigades of British infantry, there can be no doubt what the result will be; and I fancy that, if we beat them in one big fight, it will be all up with Mahdism. "It is only because the poor beggars of tribesmen regard the Dervishes as invincible, that they have put up so long with their tyranny.
Once more our attention is directed to the doings of our soldiers in Egypt. All the toil, all the bloodshed, and all the treasure expended against Mahdism had been in vain.
Macdonald lost about 128 men. I subsequently ascertained that the total of our killed and wounded was about 524. The dervish killed certainly numbered over 15,000, and their wounded probably as many more. Mahdism had been more than "smashed," it had been all but extirpated. So may all plagues end.
I stopped at village after village in the Sudan, and in many of them I was struck by the fact that, while there were plenty of children, they were all under twelve years old; and inquiry always developed that these children were known as "Government children," because in the days of Mahdism it was the literal truth that in a very large proportion of the communities every child was either killed or died of starvation and hardship, whereas under the peace brought by English rule families are flourishing, men and women are no longer hunted to death, and the children are brought up under more favorable circumstances, for soul and body, than have ever previously obtained in the entire history of the Sudan.
He had long been suspected of disloyalty by the Khalifa, and at once declared his hatred of Mahdism; declaring that, though he had not dared to declare himself openly, he had always been friendly to Egyptian rule. The men with him at once fraternized with the Arabs of Colonel Parsons' force, and were formally received into their ranks.
Of those still less went in and left with the force that fought at Abu Klea and Abu Kru. Of the very numerous body of correspondents there were but two. I regretted that there were not several score or more of old officers and men who went through the terrible Bayuda Desert campaign. Most of them would have sacrificed much to have been in at the death of Mahdism.
Though the Mahdism, of which the late califa had been the leading spirit, had degenerated into a struggle of slave-traders versus civilisation, the calif at least showed conspicuous courage in the manner in which he faced his death.
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