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The girls and women did not appear to so much advantage. These comprised old Karka, young Dam Zeneb, Sallaamto, Fad-el-Kereem, Marrasilla, and Faddeela. They had learnt to wash, but could never properly fold the linen. Ironing and starching were quite out of the question, and would have been as impossible to them as algebra. Some of these girls were rather pretty, and they knew it.
I broke all the lances into fragments upon a rock, ordered Zeneb to make a fire with the wood of the handles, to boil some coffee; and tying the swords into a bundle, we packed the lance-heads and knives in a basket, with the understanding that they should be delivered to their owners on our arrival at the last well, after which point there would be water on the route every day.
Our party consisted of my wife, Richarn, Achmet, and Zeneb; the latter was a six-foot girl of the Dinka tribe, with whom Richarn had fallen in love and married during our sojourn at Khartoum. Zeneb was a good girl, rather pretty, as strong as a giraffe, and a good cook; a very valuable acquisition for Richarn.
In moral character Dam Zeneb and Sallaamto were the best. Fad-el-Kereem was the most intelligent, but she was a young woman of strong passions, either for love or war, and required peculiar management. They were all dressed in similar uniforms to the boys, with only a slight difference in the length of their blouses.
Thus armed, she rushed into the thickest of the fray. "Bravo, Zeneb!" I could not help shouting. Seizing a thick. stick that had been dropped by one of the Arabs, I called Richarn and our little party together, and attacking the few Arabs who still offered resistance, they were immediately knocked down and disarmed.
One of the Arabs, armed with a lance, rushed up to attack Richarn from behind; but Zeneb was of the warlike Dinka tribe, and having armed herself with the hard wood handle of the axe, she went into the row like "Joan of Arc," and hastening to the rescue of Richarn, she gave the Arab such a whack upon the head that she knocked him down on the spot, and seizing his lance she disarmed him.
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