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Hour after hour, and not a living thing; and then, at last, a group of three Arabs on camels going south, far over to their right. These suddenly turned and rode down on them. "We must fight," said Mahmoud; "for they see you are no Arab." "I'll take the one with the jibbeh," said Macnamara coolly, with a pistol in his left hand and a sword in his right. "I'll take him first.
His clothes had been stripped from him; he wore only a torn and ragged jibbeh upon his body and a twist of cotton on his head to shield him from the sun. His bare shoulders and arms were scorched and blistered. His ankles were fettered, his wrists were bound with a rope of palm fibre, an iron collar was locked about his neck, to which a chain was attached, and this chain one of the soldiers held.
Then another and another did the same, leaving three who, with the little man, made a fanatical chorus. Now the three near the little man began to cut themselves with steel and knives, and one set fire to his jibbeh and began to chew the flames. Yet the faces of all three were turned towards the little man, who did no more than shriek and gesticulate and sway his body wildly up and down.
Their powerful Emirs, still smarting from the blows of Gordon, saw that the opportunity for revenge had come. A holy war was proclaimed against the Egyptian misbelievers. The followers of the Mahdi, dressed, in token of a new austerity of living, in the 'jibbeh', or white smock of coarse cloth, patched with variously shaped and coloured patches, were rapidly organised into a formidable army.
Then another and another did the same, leaving three who, with the little man, made a fanatical chorus. Now the three near the little man began to cut themselves with steel and knives, and one set fire to his jibbeh and began to chew the flames. Yet the faces of all three were turned towards the little man, who did no more than shriek and gesticulate and sway his body wildly up and down.
Here's the tap off yer head, me darlin's!" he added as they turned and faced the dervishes. "We must kill them all, or be killed," said Mahmoud, as the dervishes suddenly stopped, and the one with the jibbeh called to Mahmoud: "Whither do you fly with the white Egyptian?" "If you come and see you will know, by the mercy of God!" answered Mahmoud. The next instant the dervishes charged.
Macnamara marked his man, and the man with the jibbeh fell from his camel. Mahmoud fired his carbine, missed, and closed with his enemy. Macnamara, late of the 7th Hussars, swung his Arab sword as though it were the regulation blade and he in sword practice at Aldershot, and catching the blade of his desert foe, saved his own neck and gave the chance of a fair hand-to-hand combat.
I turned to take it from her, but by this action my grip upon my Arab foe became released, and with a desperate spring he forced himself from my grasp, bounding away, leaving a portion of his white jibbeh in my hand. But, determined that he should not escape, I dashed after him headlong across the chamber, and out by the opposite door.
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