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He opened the book that accompanied them. It was written in ink, and the first few words sufficed to tell him that his search was over. It began: "Khartoum. Thank God, after two years of suffering and misery, since the fatal day at El Obeid, I am once again amongst friends. It is true that I am still in peril, for the position here is desperate.
A retired officer of the Indian Staff Corps and a few European officers of various nationalities were sent to Khartoum to organise the new field force. Meanwhile the Mahdi, having failed to take by storm, laid siege to El Obeid, the chief town of Kordofan. During the summer of 1883 the Egyptian troops gradually concentrated at Khartoum until a considerable army was formed.
At least a score of wounded men were there, many of them so sorely hurt that they would get no farther. They paid little attention to us. One of them was known to Saleh for the wounded man told me that that was his name he also was from El Obeid. He was suffering from a terrible cut in the shoulder, which had almost severed the arm.
Therefore you would not be likely to meet anyone from El Obeid in Mahmud's camp." "How is it, Zaki, that when so many in the Soudan have suffered at the hands of the Dervishes, they not only remain quiet, but supply the largest part of the Khalifa's army?" "Because, my lord, none of them can trust the others. It is madness for one tribe to rise, as the Jaalin did at Metemmeh.
"I am assured that it will last for some days, but I am taking enough with me to renew it, four or five times." "Well, unless some unexpected obstacle occurs, I think you are safe from detection. Mind you avoid men from El Obeid; if you do not fall in with them, you should be safe. Of course, when you have sewn on those patches, your disguise will be complete.
And now, because he wanted to get to El Obeid on the chance of catching Daireh, and because English officers of position and experience commanded an Egyptian army, and the General of it had a "presence" which inspired him with confidence and respect, he was ready to take up arms in defence of a cause which had nothing, so far as he knew, to recommend it, except that a certain amount of civilisation, the wearing of trousers and petticoats, banking, railways, and steam navigation were on one side, and a very primitive mode of life with nudity, or getting on to it, on the other.
He was a Soudanese; and a smile played over his face as he added, "They are going to do wonderful things; to take El Obeid back again, to destroy the Soudan army, take the Mahdi, and carry him to Cairo in a cage, I believe. Oh! But they are great warriors, and the Mahdi's days are numbered."
"Is El Obeid in the Mahdi's hands, then?" asked Harry; for the last time he had heard news of that part of the country it had been still held by the Egyptians; and Mahomet Achmet, or the Mahdi, as he professed himself to be, had been repulsed with such heavy loss when he attacked it as to oblige him to sheer off, this being his first defeat.
Harry threaded his way amongst these, some way up a ravine, which wound to the right. The firing now seemed quite close; indeed, he could see smoke floating up to the dear sky. But surely El Obeid could not be there, in the middle of a mountain pass, commanded on all sides by higher ground! The army must surely have been attacked on the march.
"I thought there might be danger at El Obeid," the sheik said calmly. "We will turn off so as to avoid the city, and will make south to join the white pasha. For a while it would not be safe anywhere here." Without further words he turned his camel from the track they had been following, and bore away more to the south. "Think you that the white pasha will be able to maintain his position?"
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