concerns him not. Him you can honour and reward according to the value you place upon my life.'
The Arab's face cleared. ' Truly you have discovered a way out of it, Fatma, at any rate for the present.' He turned to Gregory for the first time. ' Do you speak our tongue ?' he asked.
'Yes, Emir, as Avell as my own.'
' Then you understand what we have said. Had I not been bound by my oath I would have embraced you as a brother. We Arabs can appreciate a brave deed, even when it is done by an enemy. When one of the boatmen ran into the battery where I was directing the guns against your boat, and said that the boat in which my wife with other women were crossing had been sunk by a shell from our batteries on the other side, I felt that my blood was turned to water. He said he believed that all had been killed or drowned, but that he looked back as he swam and saw a white man jump overboard, and a short time after another followed him, and that when he reached the shore they were supporting a woman in the water. I rode hither, having but small 'hope indeed that it was my wife, but marvelling much that a white officer should thus risk his life to save a drowning woman. My oath pressed heavily upon me as I rode. Even had it been but a slave girl whom you rescued, I should no less have admired your courage. I myself am said to be brave, but it would never have entered my mind thus to risk my life for a stranger. When I found that it was my wife who was saved, I still more bitterly regretted the oath that stood between me and her preserver, and truly glad am I that she has herself shown me how I can escape from its consequences. Now I see you I wonder even more than before at what you have done, for indeed in years you are little more than a boy.'
'What I did, Emir, I believe any white officer who was a good swimmer would have done. No Englishman would see a woman drowning without making an effort to save her, if he had it in his power. As to the fact that she was not of the same race or religion, he would never give it a thought. It would be quite enough for him that she was a woman.'
' And you,' Mahmud said, turning to Zaki; ' you are a Jaalin, are you not ?'
'I am.'
'Jaalin or Baggara, you are my friend,' Mahmud said, placing his hand on Zaki's shoulders. ' And so you, too, leapt overboard to save a woman?'
'No, Emir,' he replied, ' I jumped over because my master jumped over. I had not thought about the woman. I jumped over to aid him, and it was to give him my help that I took my share in supporting the woman. The Bimbashi is a good master, and I would die for him.'
Mahmud smiled at this frank answer. ' Nevertheless, whatever may have been your motive, you were enabled to save the life of my wife, and henceforth you are my friend.' Then he turned to the horsemen who were still grouped on the bank above. ' You have heard what has been said? The white man is under the protection of my harem ; the Jaalin is henceforth my friend.'
Mahmud was a fine specimen of the tribesmen of the Soudan—tall, well-built, and with pure Arab features. He was the Khalifa's favourite son, and was generous, with kindly impulses, but impatient of control. Of late he had given way to outbursts of passion, feeling acutely the position in which he was placed. He had advanced from Omdurman confident that he should be able to drive the infidels before him and carry his arms far into Egypt. His aspirations had been thwarted by the Khalifa. His requests for stores and camels that would have enabled him to advance had been refused, and he had been ordered to fall back. His troops had been rendered almost mutinous from the want of supplies. He had seen the invaders growing stronger and stronger, and accomplishing what had seemed an impossibility —the bringing up of stores sufficient for their sustenance—by pushing the railroad forward towards Berber. Now that their forces had been very greatly increased, and the issue of the struggle had become doubtful, he had received the order for which he had been craving for months, and had been directed to march down and attack the Egyptian army, drive them across the Nile, and destroy the railway.
By means of spies he had heard that ere long a large force of British soldiers would come up to reinforce the Egyptians. so that what might have been easy work two months before, had now become a difficult and dangerous enterprise. The manner in which the Dervishes had been defeated in their attacks upon Wolseley's desert column, and in the engagements that had since taken place, showed how formidable was the fighting power, not only of the British troops, but of the native army they had organized, and his confidence in the power of the tribesmen to sweep all before them had been shaken.
The Dervishes scowled when they heard that they were not to have the satisfaction of massacring this Englishman whose countrymen were still keeping up a terrible fire on their redoubt. It was not one of their wives who had been rescued, and Gregory's act of jumping overboard seemed to them to savour of madness, and if that plea had been advanced they would have recognized it as rendering the person of the man who had performed it inviolable. However, as he was under the protection of their leader's harem there was nothing more to be said, and at an order from Mahmud all but four of them rode off, while the others fell in behind him. Mahmud did not mount again, but walked with his wife to a deserted mud-hut two hundred yards away. There he left her, telling Gregory and Zaki to sit down outside, and placing the four men on guard.
'I must rejoin my men,' he said as he mounted. 'When your vessels have gone I will return.'
Half an hour later the fire ceased. Soon afterwards Mahmud rode up with a score of men, followed by some dozen women, and a slave leading a donkey. On this Fatma took her seat, and the women surrounded her. Gregory and Zaki walked close behind them; Mahmud, with his horsemen, rode in front. After proceeding for a mile they came upon a group of tents. Mahmud's banner was flying on a pole in front of the largest of these. Behind, and touching it, was another almost as large. This was the abode of the ladies of Mahmud's harem; the other tents were occupied by his principal Emirs. A hundred yards away was the encampment of the army, which was sheltered in hastily-constructed huts, or arbours made of bushes. By Mahmud's order a small tent was erected with blankets close to the after-entrance into the harem tent, for Gregory's use, so that, should he be attacked by fanatics, he could at once take refuge in the harem, whose sanctity not even the most daring would dare to violate.
A handsome robe was brought for Zaki, and as Mahmud presented it to him he said, ' You are my friend, but you
must now go back to your vessels or to Berber. My orders were to kill all the Jaalin, and we have spared none who fell into our hands at Metemmeh or since. I cannot keep you here. As long as you stay by my side you will be safe, but you could not leave me for a moment. It is as much as I can do to save the life of this infidel officer, and it is to him that I owe most, for it was he who first leapt into the river. The white men's boats have already fastened up behind the island where they before stationed themselves. Make your way down there at daybreak and wave a white cloth. Doubtless they will send a boat ashore, thinking that you bear a message from me; or if you see they do not do this, you can swim out to them.'
' I would rather stay with my master. Cannot you let him go too?'
'That is impossible,' Mahmud said shortly. 'It is known throughout the camp that I have a white man here. The news will travel fast to the Khalifa. My actions have already been misrepresented to him, and were I to let this officer go, my father might recall me to Omdurman and send another to command here. He must stay, but you may go without harm. You can scarcely have been noticed yet, and I can well declare, should the Khalifa hear of you, that you have escaped.'
'May I speak with my master?' Zaki said. 'If he says stay, I shall stay, though it might cost me my life; if he says go, I must go.'
' You may speak to him,' Mahmud said.
Zaki went round to Gregory's tent and told him what Mahmud had said.
' Go, certainly, Zaki. You can do me no good by remaining here, and might even do me harm, for if you were killed I also might be murdered. Moreover, I wish to send the news of my capture and how it occurred. I do not think any save yourself noticed that I was missing, and when the fight was over, and they found that I was absent, they might suppose that I had been shot and had fallen overboard, I will write a note for you to carry. It is in all respects better that you should go. Were we to be seen talking together it might be supposed that we were planning some way of escape, and I should be more closely watched. As it is, I see that Mahmud will have difficulty in protecting me. Were you to ride about Avith him, as he says, your presence would remind his followers that he has a white man a captive here; whereas if I remain almost in concealment near the harem, the fact that there is a white man here will pass out of the minds of those who know it, and will not become the common talk of the camp. Mahmud is running some risk in having spared my life, and I do not wish to make it harder for him. Go therefore and tell him that you will leave to-night. I cannot write now; my pocket-book is soaked through. But I will tear out some leaves and dry them in the sun, and write what I have to say before you start. I shall speak highly of you in my
