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Updated: May 28, 2025
Nearer to the Sirdar's main force the skirmishing of the 21st Lancers, new to war but eager to "win their spurs," was answered by angry but impotent charges of the Khalifa's horse and foot, until at sunset both sides retired for the night's rest.
Beside us was the Praying Square or Mosque, a space of bare ground of about ten acres or so in extent. As soon as the troops got beyond the big wall and in sight of the tomb and Khalifa's house, a brisk fusilade from Remingtons by the Jehadieh body-guard protecting Abdullah was opened against us. Fortunately, the big stone wall was not loopholed on either side.
As my father was a good Arabic scholar, my mother always entertained a faint hope that he might have escaped; especially as we know that a good many of the Egyptian soldiers were not killed, but were taken prisoners, and made to serve in the Mahdi's army." "Yes, there are several of them among the Khalifa's artillerymen, but I am very much afraid that none of the officers were spared.
Two hours later a little Austrian gentleman stepped forth, and the telegraph hastened to tell the news that Slatin, sometime Governor of Darfur, had escaped from the Khalifa's clutches.
Be ye of one mind, that it is the duty of every True Believer to hasten beneath the Khalifa's banner and to sacrifice his life for the safety of the faith." And another Indian Moslem leader thus adjured the British authorities: "I appeal to the present government to change its anti-Turkish attitude before the fury of millions of Moslem fellow-subjects is kindled to a blaze and brings disaster."
Apparently, however, he did not dare to move without the Khalifa's permission; for his letters, as late as the 20th, show that he had not broken his camp, and was still asking the Emir for information as to the doings of the 'Turks. Of a truth there was plenty to tell.
With Slatin Pasha we went to the Khalifa's "palace" to gaze at the "saint's" carriage, the skeleton of Gordon's piano, and scores of ancient guns which had cut short the lives of Christian men. Slatin's house we saw, too, and the gate whence he had escaped: the Mahdi's shattered tomb, and the famous open-air Mosque.
"It's good to see you again," he said, as he shook hands; and then he looked sharply into Hillyard's face and laughed. "Shook you up a bit, that performance, eh? Well, they bungled things in Khartum a little while ago. I can't afford awkwardness here." Senga was in the centre of that old Khalifa's tribe which not so many years ago ruled in Omdurman.
Captain Baring's party, on the other hand, met with small patrols of the enemy near Jebel Surgham. Turning the hill at a few minutes past five o'clock, in the yet slanting daylight, he at once detected that the Khalifa's army, which had apparently been largely reinforced during the night, was marching forward to attack us.
They had picked up a good many of the fugitives, among them the Khalifa's favourite wife; who, doubtless with other women, had slipped away at one of his halting places, feeling unable to bear the constant fatigues and hardships of the flight in the desert.
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