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But by the loving kindness of God, and the vigour of the knight, she but sundered the bonds that bound him, so that he sprang forth, and wounded as he was, cried, "Dame, by the grace of God it is not to-day that you shall kill me with the sword." At this word that fair lady, the wife of the Soudan, spoke suddenly, and said,
It represents an English trooper in the late Soudan expedition kneeling behind the shelter of a dead camel, and with a revolver in each hand keeping at bay a crowd of Arab spearmen. The soldier is badly wounded, but with smoking revolvers and an evident determination to die hard, he has checked, and is still checking, the advance of somewhere about ten thousand Arab troops.
The same pen described the scene he created on arrival, and the speech he made. Thousands of the people crowded to kiss his hands and feet, calling him the "Sultan of the Soudan." "His speech to the people was received with enthusiasm. He said, 'I come without soldiers, but with God on my side, to redress the evils of the Soudan. I will not fight with any weapons but justice.
Decidedly "circumstances alter cases," even in matters military. I hope I may be pardoned for these recurring quotations and saws. The intolerably fervent solar heat of the Soudan at that season did not admit of much originality in thought, expression, or act.
Sinister rumours, however, were still about, like a flight of ill-omened birds, and it was said that another troop of people were collecting further on to intercept our passage to Soudan. During this halt, grave conferences were held between the Kailouee merchant, En-Noor, and the marabout, on the subject of these fresh reports.
Twenty-four hours before, Harry Forsyth had no sympathy whatever with the Turks and Egyptians, while he thought the wild tribes of the Soudan fine fellows, and worthy of the independence they sought to establish. Indeed, he had seen too much of the shameless corruption and cruel extortion of Egyptian officials to feel differently.
There were three state coaches one of them might at a pinch have served for the Lord Mayor and an American buggy. They needed a little retrimming, but there was harness and material enough to have rigged out the four vehicles in style. In short, the arsenal held the jettisoned cargo of the whole aforetime Egyptian Soudan, with much besides drawn from Abyssinia and Central Africa.
They, therefore, sent off a body of archers to gain information from a small caravan which was coming from Soudan, consisting of a few Tebus, ten camels, and about forty slaves. The unfortunate Tebus were soon afterwards attacked by a fierce tribe, the Haddanara, who, disappointed at getting nothing from the English expedition, murdered the whole of them and carried off their camels and slaves.
Nothing can be more united in a moral sense than a French, British, or Russian regiment. Nothing, for that matter, could be more united than a Highland clan at Killiecrankie or a rush of religious fanatics in the Soudan.
Gordon said to me three years ago: 'Come with me, I'll help you on. You don't need to live, if you don't want to. Most of us will get knocked out up there in the Soudan. Gordon said that to me. But there was another fellow with Gordon who knew me, and I couldn't face it. So I stayed behind here.
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