by G. A. Henty
" I was with the force that came up from Merawi last year. Will you bring me the three men you speak of? I would question them one by one. Assure them that they need not be afraid of answering truthfully, even if they themselves were concerned in the attack upon the white officers and the crew of the steamer, for no steps will be taken against them. It is eighteen years since then, and no doubt their houses were destroyed and their groves cut down when the British column came here and found the place deserted. I am ready to reward them if I obtain the information I require from them."
The three men were presently brought to the spot where Gregory had seated himself in the shade of one of the huts. Zaki stood beside him, and the four armed men took post a short distance away. The first called up was a very old man. In reply to Gregory's questions he said: " I was already old when the steam-boat ran ashore. I took no hand in the business; the white men had done me no harm, while the followers pf the Mahdi had killed many of my family and friends. I
heard what was going to be done, and I stayed in my house. I call upon Allah to witness that what I say is true!"
"Do you know if any remains of that expedition are still in existence?"
"No, my lord. When the white troops came here some months afterwards I fled, as all here did; but I know that before they destroyed Wad Gamr's house they took away some boxes of papers that had been brought ashore from the ship, and were still in the house. I know of nothing else. The clothes of the men on board the steam-boat were divided among those who took part in the attack, but there was little booty."
Gregory knew that at Wad Gamr's house but few signs of the tragedy had been found when General Brackenbury's troops entered. Blood-stained visiting-cards of Stewart's, a few scraps of paper, and a field-glass had alone been discovered besides the boxes of papers.
The next man who came up said that he had been with the party who fell upon the engineers and crew of the boat by the river-side. " I was ordered to kill them," he said. " Had I not done so I should have been killed myself."
" Do you know whether any booty was hidden away before the English came ?"
"No, my lord, there was no booty taken; no money was found on board the steamer. We stripped her of the brass-work and took the wood ashore to burn. The sheik gave us a dollar and a half a man for what we had done. There may have been some money found on the ship, but as his own men were on board first and took all that they thought of value I have naught to say about it."
" And you never heard of anything being hidden before the British troops arrived?"
The Arab shook his head. "No, my lord, but there may have been, though I never heard of it. I went and fought at Kirbekan, and when we were beaten I fled at once to Berber, and remained there until the white troops had all gone down the country."
"I may want to question you again to-morrow," Gregory said. " Here are two dollars. I shall give you as much more if I want you again."
The third man was then called up. He was evidently in fear. "Do not be afraid to answer me truly," Gregory said. " If you do so, no harm will come to you whatever share you may have had in the affair; but if you answer falsely and the truth is afterwards discovered, you will be punished. Now, where were you when this business took place?"
"We were all ordered by Wad Gamr to gather near his house, and when the signal was given we were to run in and kill the white men. We saw them go up to the house. They had been told to leave their arms behind them; one of the sheik's servants came out and waved his arms, and we ran in and killed them."
"What happened then?"
"We carried the bodies outside the house. Then we took what money was found in their pockets, with watches and other things, in to the sheik, and he paid us a dollar and a half a head, and said that we could have their clothes. For my share I had a jacket belonging to one of them. When I got it home I found that there was a pocket inside, and in it was a book partly written on, and many other bits of paper."
"And what became of that?" Gregory asked eagerly.
" I threw it into a corner, it was of no use to me. But when the white troops came up in the boats and beat us at Kirbekan I came straight home and, seeing the pocket-book, took it and hid it under a rock, for I thought that when the white troops got here they would find it, and that they might then destroy the house and cut down my trees. Then I went away, and did not come back until the}' had all gone."
"And where is the pocket-book now]"
" It may be under the rock where I hid it, my lord. I have never thought of it since; it was rubbish."
"Can you take me to the place?"
"I think so; it was not far from my house. I pushed it
under the first great rock I came to, for I was in haste and wanted to be away before the white soldiers on camels could get here."
"Did you hear of any other things being hidden?"
"No; I think everything was given up. If this thing had been of value I should perhaps have told the sheik, but as it was only written papers and of no use to anyone, I did not trouble to do so."
" Well, let us go at once," Gregory said, rising to his feet. " Although of no use to you, these papers may be of importance."
Followed by Zaki and the four men, Gregory went to the peasant's house, which stood a quarter of a mile away.
"This is not the house I lived in then," the man said. " The white troops destroyed every house in the village, but when they had gone I built another on the same spot."
The hill rose steeply behind it. The peasant went on till he stopped at a large boulder. "This was the rock," he said, " where I thrust it under as far as my arm would reach. I pushed it in on the upper side." The man lay down. "It was just about here," he said. "It is here, my lord; I can just feel it, but I cannot get it out. I pushed it in as far as the tips of my fingers could reach it."
" Well, go down and cut a couple of sticks three or four feet long." In ten minutes the man returned with them. "Now take one of them, and when you feel the book push the stick along its side until it is well beyond it. Then you ought to be able to scrape it out. If you cannot do so, we shall have to roll the stone over. It is a big rock, but with two or three poles one ought to be able to turn it over."
After several attempts, however, the man produced the packet. Gregory opened it with trembling hands. It contained, as the man had said, a large number of loose sheets, evidently torn from a pocket-book and all covered with close writing. 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. Still, the army that is coming up to our help may be here in time; and even if they should not do so this may be found when they come, and will be given to my dear wife at Cairo if she is still there. Her name is Mrs. Hilliard, and her address will surely be known at the Bank."
"These are the papers I was looking for,"he said to Zaki; " I will tell you about them afterwards."
He handed ten dollars to the native, thrust the packet into his breast-pocket, and walked slowly down to the river. He had never entertained any hope of finding his father, but this evidence of his death gave him a shock. His mother was right, then; she had always insisted there was a possibility that he might have escaped the massacre at El Obeid. He had done so; he had reached Khartoum, he had started full of hope of seeing his wife and child, but had been treacherously massacred here. He would not now read this message from the grave, that must be reserved for some time when he was alone. He knew enough to be able to guess the details—they could not be otherwise than painful. He felt almost glad that his mother was not alive. To him the loss was scarcely a real one. His father had left him when an infant. Although his mother had so often spoken of him he had scarcely been a reality to Gregory, for when he became old enough to comprehend the matter it
seemed to him certain that his father must have been killed. He could then hardly understand how his mother could cling to hope. His father had been more a real character to him since he started from Cairo than ever before.
He knew the desert now and its fierce inhabitants. He could picture the battle, and since the fight at Omdurman he had been able to see before him the wild rush on the Egyptian square, the mad confusion, the charge of a handful of white officers, and the one white man going off with the
GREGORY FINDS HIS FATHERS PAPERS
black battalion that held together. If, then, it was a shock to him to know how his father had died, how vastly greater would it have been to his mother! She had pictured him as dying suddenly, fighting to the last and scarce conscious of pain till he received a fatal wound. She had said to Gregory that it was better to think of his father as having died thus than lingering in hopeless slavery like Neufeld; but it would have been agony to her to know that he did suffer for two years, that he had then struggled on through all dangers to Khartoum, and was on his way back full of hope and love for her when he was treacherously murdered.
The village sheik met him as he went down.
"You have found nothing, my lord?"
"Nothing but a few old papers," he said.
"You will report well of us, I hope, to the great English commander?"
" I shall certainly tell him that you did all in your power to aid me."
He walked down towards the river. One of the men who had gone on while he had been speaking to the sheik, ran back to meet him.
"There is a steamer coming up the river, my lord."
" That is fortunate indeed," Gregory exclaimed. " I had intended to sleep here to-night, and to bargain with the sheik for donkeys or camels to take us back. This will save two days."
Two or three native craft were fastened up to the shore waiting for a breeze to set in strong enough to take them up. Gregory at once arranged with one of them to put his party on board the steamer in their boat. In a quarter of an hour the gun-boat approached, and they rowed out to meet her. As she came up Gregory stood up and shouted to them to throw him a rope. This was done, and an officer came to the side.
" I want a passage for myself and five men to Abu Hamed. I am an officer on General Hunter's staff."
"With pleasure. Have you come down from the front?" he asked, as Gregory stepped on board with the five blacks.
"Yes."
"Then you can tell me about the great fight. We heard of it at Dongola, but beyond the fact that we had thrashed the Khalifa and taken Omdurman, we received no particulars. But before you begin, have a drink. It is horribly annoying to me," he went on, as they sat down under the awning, and the steward brought tumblers, soda-water, some whisky, and two lemons. Gregory refused the whisky, but took a lemon with his cold water. "A horrible nuisance," the officer went on. "This is one of Gordon's old steamers; she has broken down twice. Still, I console myself by thinking that even if I had been in time very likely she would not have been taken up. I hope, however, there will be work to do yet. As you see, I have got three of these native craft in tow, and it is as much as I can do to get them up this cataract. Now, please tell me about the battle."
Gregory gave him an outline of the struggle, of the occupation of Omdurman, and of what might be called the funeral service of Gordon at Khartoum. It was dark before the story was finished.
"By the way," the officer said, as they were about to sit down to dinner, "while we were on deck I did not ask about your men. I must order food to be given them."
"They have plenty," Gregory said; "I brought enough for a week with me. I thought that I might be detained two or three days here and be obliged to make the journey by land to Abu Hamed."
" I have not asked you what you were doing at this out-of-the-way place, and how long you have been here?"
" I only landed this morning. I came down to search for some relics. My father was on board Stewart's steamer, and as there would be nothing doing at Omdurman for a few days I got leave to run down. I was fortunate in securing a boat at Abu Hamed on my arrival there, and I have been equally so now in having been picked up by you, so that I shall not be away from Omdurman more than seven days if I have equal
luck in getting a steamer at Atbara. I do not think I shall be disappointed, for the white troops are coming down and stores are going up for the Egyptian brigade, so that I am certain not to be kept there many hours. The Sirdar has gone up to Fashoda or I don't suppose I should have got leave."
"Yes; I heard at Merawi from the officer in command that some foreign troops had arrived there. I suppose nothing more is known about it?"
"No; no news will probably come down for another fortnight, perhaps longer than that."
"Who can they be?"
" The general idea is that they are French. They can only be French or a party from the Congo States."
" They have tremendous cheek whoever they are," the officer said. "It is precious lucky for them that we have given the Khalifa something else to think about, or you may be sure he would have wiped them out pretty quickly unless they are a very strong force, which doesn't seem probable. I hear the Sirdar has taken a regiment up with him."
"Yes, but I don't suppose any actual move will be made at present."
"No, I suppose it will be a diplomatic business; still, I should think they would have to go."
"No one has any doubt about that at Omdurman," Gregory said. "After all the expense and trouble we have had to retake the Soudan, it is not likely that we should let anyone else plant themselves on the road to the great lakes. When will you be at Abu Hamed, sir?"
" We shall be there about five o'clock,—at any rate I think you may safely reckon on catching the morning train. It goes, I think, at eight."
" I am sure to catch a train soon, for orders have been sent down that railway materials shall be sent up as quickly as possible, as it has been decided that the railway shall be carried on at once to Khartoum. I expect that as soon as the Nile falls they will make a temporary bridge across the Atbara."
It was six in the morning when the steamer arrived at Abu Hamed. Gregory at once landed, paid his four men, went up to the little station, and an hour later was on his way to Atbara Fort. He had but two hours to wait there, and reached Omdurman at three o'clock on the following afternoon. As he landed he met an officer he knew.
"Is there any news?" he asked.
" Nothing but Fashoda is talked about. It has been ascertained that the force there is undoubtedly French. The betting is about even as to whether France will back down or not. They have made it difficult for themselves by an outburst of enthusiasm at what they considered the defeat of England. Well, of course, that does not go for much except that it makes it harder for their government to give in."
" And has any news been received of the whereabouts of the Khalifa?"
" No. Broadwood with two regiments of Egyptian cavalry and the camel corps started in pursuit of the Khalifa and Osman an hour after it was found that they had got away. Slatin Pasha went with them. But as the horses had been at work all day they had to stop at half-past eight. They could not then get down to the water, and bivouacked where they had halted. At four in the morning they started again, and at half-past eight found a spot where they could get down to the river; then they rode fifteen miles farther. They were now thirty-five miles from Omdurman. One of the gun-boats had gone up with supplies, but owing to the Nile having overflowed could not get near enough to land them. Next morning they got news that the Khalifa was twenty-five miles ahead, and had just obtained fresh camels, so they were ordered to return to the town. 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 has halting-places, feeling unable to bear the constant fatigues and hardships of the flight in the desert. The cavalry have since been out again, but beyond the fact
that the Khalifa had been joined by many of the fugitive
s from the battle and was making for Kordofan, no certain news has been obtained.
"At present nothing can be done in that direction. That horse you bought is all right."
" I really did not like taking him, for I already had one, and it looked almost like robbery giving him two pounds for it and the saddle."
"Others have done as well," the officer laughed; "one of the brigade staff bought a horse for a pound from Burleigh, who had given forty for it at Cairo. There was no help for it, they could not take horses down. Besides, it is not their loss after all; the newspapers can afford to pay for them, they must have been coining money of late."
"That reconciles me," Gregory laughed; "I did not think of the correspondents' expenses being paid by the papers."
" I don't know anything about their arrangements, but it stands to reason that it must be so in a campaign like this. In an ordinary war a man can calculate what his outlay might be, but on an expedition of this kind no one could foretell what expenses he might have to incur. Besides, the Sirdar has saved the newspapers an enormous expenditure. The correspondents have been rigidly kept down to messages of a few hundred words, whereas, if they had had their own way they would have sent down columns. Of course the correspondents grumbled, but I have no doubt their employers were very well pleased, and the newspapers must have saved thousands of pounds by this restriction."
" You are back sooner than I expected," General Hunter said when Gregory went in and reported his arrival. "It is scarce a week since you left."
" Just a week, sir. Everything went smoothly, and I was but three or four hours at Hebbeh."
'And did you succeed in your search?"
"Yes, sir; I most fortunately found a man who had hidden a pocket-book he had taken from the body of one of
the white men who were murdered there. There was nothing in it but old papers, and when Brackenbury's expedition approached he had hidden it away, and did not give it a thought until I enquired if he knew of any papers and other things connected with those on board the steamer. He at once took me to the place where he had hidden it under a great stone, and it turned out to be the note-book and journals of my father, who was, as I thought possible, the white man who had arrived at Khartoum a short time before the place was captured by the Dervishes, and who had gone down in the steamer that carried Colonel Stewart."