know the way to
the wady I should say that we could venture to sally out and march back,
but that would cost us a good many lives, for the horsemen could ride on
ahead, dismount, open fire on us from the sand-hills, and be off again
on their horses when we went up to attack them. No, I think we cannot do
better than follow our original plan. Our water will hold out for a
week, and by putting ourselves on short allowance at the end of a day or
two if we find that they are determined to wait, we can make it last for
nearly a fortnight, and long before that your tribesmen ought to be
here, and in that case only the mounted men will escape us. Three of
their horses lie dead outside, so there are but five left."

"Ah! if we could but cut them all off," the sheik said in a tone of
fury, "then we might be safe for a long time. If any of them get back to
tell the tale the Mahdi will send a force next time that there will be
no resisting."

Edgar sat thinking for a minute or two.

"I have an idea, sheik," he said at last. "Send off one of your boys as
soon as the moon sets, let him go to El Bahr Nile. When your friends
arrive he will tell them of the repulse we have given the dervishes, and
that there are now but twenty-five of them, several of whom are
doubtless wounded. Tell them that if but ten men come to aid us we can
defeat them; let the other ten, that is if twenty arrive, start first,
and turning off the track make a detour and come down at night upon the
wady. There they will find but one man with the camels; but they must
not show themselves, but must hide close at hand. Then when the horsemen
arrive they must make an ambush, and either shoot them down as they pass
or let them go through to the wells. They are sure to wait there for a
few hours, and they can fall upon them there. Let the men be ordered to
fire only at the horses; they can deal with the men after they have
dismounted. The great thing is to prevent the horsemen getting away."

"Mashallah, Muley, your plan is a grand one. Had you been bred in the
desert you could not have better understood our warfare. What a pity it
is that you are a Kaffir! You would have been a great sheik had you been
a true believer."

"Gordon Pasha was a Kaffir," Edgar replied, "but he was greater than any
sheik."

"He was a great man indeed," the sheik said; "he was a very father to
the people; there was no withstanding him. We fought against him, for
our interest lay with t