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Updated: May 3, 2025
For Mather gave a sharp order to his men, and the Arab, as though he understood that order, came to a stop before a rifle could be lifted to a shoulder. He walked quietly back to Mather. He was brought up on to the glacis, where he stood before Durrance without insolence or servility. He explained in Arabic that he was a man of the Kabbabish tribe named Abou Fatma, and friendly to the English.
The first radical error committed was the decision to advance on El Obeid from Duem, because there were no wells on that route, whereas had the northern route via Gebra and Bara been taken, a certain supply of water could have been counted on, and still more important, the co-operation of the powerful Kabbabish tribe, the only one still hostile to the Mahdi, might have been secured.
An opportunity of helping Harry Feversham had slipped away; for the Arab who could not even speak his name was Abou Fatma of the Kabbabish tribe, and his presence wounded and helpless upon the Nile steamer between Korosko and Assouan meant that Harry Feversham's carefully laid plan for the rescue of Colonel Trench had failed.
The sun had set and darkness was upon us before the Sirdar and staff, going at times in single file, reached the common prison where the Assouan merchant, Charles Neufeld, was confined. Whilst accompanying a convoy of rifles presented by the Egyptian Government in 1886 to Sheikh Saleh of the friendly Kabbabish tribe, Neufeld had been captured by a party of dervishes.
The country to the south and east was continually patrolled, to guard against a turning movement, and the communications were further strengthened by the establishment of fortified posts at Semna, Wady Atira, and Tanjore. The friendly Arab tribes Bedouin, Kabbabish, and Foggara ranged still more widely in the deserts and occupied the scattered wells.
Captain Willoughby began to feel sorry that he had been in such haste to deny all acquaintance with Abou Fatma of the Kabbabish tribe. "No; it was not Abou Fatma," he said, with an awkward sort of hesitation. He dreaded the next question which Durrance would put to him. He filled his pipe, pondering what answer he should make to it. But Durrance put no question at all for the moment.
"No, a man of the Kabbabish tribe." "Abou Fatma?" Willoughby repeated, as though for the first time he had heard the name. "No, I never came across him;" and then he stopped. It occurred to Durrance that it was not a natural place at which to stop; Willoughby might have been expected to add, "Why do you ask me?" or some question of the kind. But he kept silent.
And so, turning on his side, he slept dreamlessly while the hosts of the stars trampled across the heavens above his head. Now, at this moment Abou Fatma of the Kabbabish tribe was sleeping under a boulder on the Khor Gwob. He rose early and continued along the broad plains to the white city of Suakin.
I don't think we can spare you for the Royal Mallows just yet awhile." "But, sir; but !" "The fewer questions the better, perhaps. But of course it must seem rather amazing. I had a little private business with the Kabbabish. It must be done in person. I did it, and came to your post in my return. I kept on winking at you as a sign that I wanted a word with you alone." "Yes, yes.
If a man were to leave the river, he might journey westward and find no human habitation, nor the smoke of a cooking fire, except the lonely tent of a Kabbabish Arab or the encampment of a trader's caravan, till he reached the coast-line of America. Or he might go east and find nothing but sand and sea and sun until Bombay rose above the horizon.
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