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It chanced that he had in hand a thousand dinars which he owed to the youth's father, the balance of a business-transaction between them; so he went and bade farewell to the Consul, who charged him, "Give the thousand dinars to my son Ala al-Din;" and commended the lad to his care, saying, "He is as it were thy son." Accordingly, Ala al-Din joined company with Mahmud of Balkh.
Thereupon he descended from the cistern-niche and Mahmud mounted him on a mule, and they fared on till they reached Baghdad, where he brought him to his own house and carried him to the bath, saying to him, "The goods and money were the ransom of thy life, O my son; but, if thou wilt hearken to me, I will give thee the worth of that thou hast lost, twice told."
A man of judgment, discretion, and prudence, delivers not his speech till he find an interval of silence." Some of the courtiers of Sultan Mahmud asked Husan Maimandi, saying: "What did the king whisper to you to-day on a certain state affair?" He said: "You are also acquainted with it."
At the end of May, Mahmud with his army arrived at Omdurman. The Khalifa received him with delight, and several imposing reviews were held outside the city. Mahmud himself was eager to march against the 'Turks. He had no experience of modern rifles, and felt confident that he could easily destroy or at least roll back the invading forces.
In the end of the month Zikada, in the year of the Hegira 390, Mahmud hastened from the city of Balak to Herat, and from Herat to Sistan, where he defeated Khaliph, the son of Achmet, the governor of that province of the extinguished family of Bokhara, and returned to Ghazni.
The sultan followed his guide, invested the house with his guards, and extinguishing the torches, pronounced the death of the criminal, who had been seized in the act of rapine and adultery. After the execution of his sentence, the lights were rekindled, Mahmud fell prostrate in prayer, and rising from the ground, demanded some homely fare, which he devoured with the voraciousness of hunger.
But I bore him no ill-will, Huzoor. I loved him and admired his deeds. "Many attempts they made, but though my mother was clever and Ibrahim Mahmud and his father the Vizier were unscrupulous, my brother was in the protection of the Prophet. Moreover he was much away from Mekran Kot, being, like our father, a great traveller and soon irked by whatever place he might be in.
The first three days at Kunur were days of eager expectation. Rumour was king. The Dervish army had crossed the Atbara at Hudi, and was within ten miles of the camp. Mahmud was already making a flank march through the desert to Berber. A battle was imminent. A collision must take place in a few hours. Officers with field-glasses scanned the sandy horizon for the first signs of the enemy.
The rest of the army was, however, destroyed or dispersed. The fugitives fled up the Atbara river, leaving many wounded to die in the scrub, all along their line of retreat. Of the powerful force of 12,000 fighting men which Mahmud had gathered at Metemma, scarcely 4,000 reached Gedaret in safety.
Mahmud was obliged to take the strongest measures, and several of those who were loudest in their dissatisfaction were summarily executed. The rest were pacified with the assurance that he was only waiting for a fortunate day. In the meantime, the men were employed in fortifying the position. Deep holes were dug along the edge of the wood, and behind these were trenches and pitfalls.
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