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I was fully prepared for some difficulty, but I trusted that when once on the march I should be able to get them under discipline. Among my people were two blacks: one, "Richarn," already described as having been brought up by the Austrian Mission at Khartoum; the other, a boy of twelve years old, "Saat."
All night we could hear the sick, muttering and raving in delirium, but from years of association with disagreeables we had no fear of the infection. One morning the boy Saat came to me with his head bound up, and complained of severe pain in the back and limbs, with all the usual symptoms of plague: in the afternoon I saw him leaning over the ship's side; his nose was bleeding violently!
With sixteen men of the "Forty Thieves," together with Colonel Abd-el-Kader and Lieutenant Baker, R.N., I directed a heavy fire into the covert, and soon made it too hot for the sharpshooters. I had ordered the blue lights at the commencement of the attack. My black boys, Saat and Bellaal, together with some soldiers, now arrived with a good supply.
Baker, I went to the Mission and heard that the boy had borne an excellent character, and that it must have been BY MISTAKE that he had been turned out with the others. This being conclusive, Saat was immediately adopted. Mrs. Baker was shortly at work making him some useful clothes, and in an incredibly short time a great change was effected.
He was a fine strong lad of nearly fifteen, and he now lay helplessly on his mat, and cast wistful glances at the face of his mistress as she gave him a cup of cold water mixed with a few lumps of sugar that we had obtained from the traders at Gondokoro. Saat grew worse and worse. Nothing would relieve the unfortunate boy from the burning torture of that frightful disease.
We had lost all our riding oxen within a few days; they had succumbed to the flies, and the only animal alive was already half dead; this was the little bull that had always carried the boy Saat. It was the 8th April, and within a few days the boats upon which we depended for our return to civilization would assuredly quit Gondokoro.
On the following Sabbath, Yonan preached to a congregation of about two hundred, at Sanawar, where forty families of refugees from Saat were spending the summer. When Miss Fiske and Miss Rice visited their camp, they found a number of temporary huts enclosing a circle, where the domestic labors of spinning, weaving, and cooking were actively going on.
The escort had crowded around us, and as the boy Saat was close to me I ordered him to fire his gun. This was Saat's greatest delight, and bang went one barrel unexpectedly, close to the tall chief's ear. The effect was charming.
The boy Saat and Richarn now assured me that the men had intended to fire at me, but that they were frightened at seeing us thus prepared, but that I must not expect one man of the Dongolowas to be any more faithful than the Jalyns.
The natives who were in the bottom of the boat positively yelled with terror, not knowing whether the shock was in any way connected with the dreaded report of the rifle; the black women screamed; and the boy Saat handing me a spare rifle, and Richarn being ready likewise, we looked out for a shot should the angry hippo again attack us.
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