nd out what they think about
their chief."

The professor left the room at once, leaving his friends listening to
every sound that came through the open windows of the soft night; and
there were many, all going to prove that something extraordinary was
afloat, the little party having no difficulty in making out that a large
body of men were on the move, while when this had ceased and a peculiar
stillness began to reign, the distant tap, tap, tap of another drum was
heard, followed in due time by the dull tramp of men.

"I had no idea," said the doctor, "that these Baggara were in such a
state of discipline. Why, they seem to march like European troops."

"You have not seen so much of them as I have," said Harry sadly.
"During my imprisonment I have had plenty of time to study them, and
have seen pretty well why this is. Of course their leader's position
depends upon his army more than upon his reputation of being the prophet
upon whom the last Mahdi's garment has fallen."

"I suppose so," said Frank. "Mahomet's great power came from the
sword."

"Of course," replied Harry. "No wonder that, with an army to back him,
he made so many converts. It was, `Which will you have, the Koran or
the sword?' And it is so now with this man, only it is worse. Brutal
violence of the most horrible description wherever he and his followers
go, and there is more stress laid upon the sword than upon the Koran."

"And the spear added," said Frank.

"Exactly. I don't want to harrow you with the horrors I have been
compelled to witness, and what I have seen and known to occur is but a
drop of blood in an ocean. The country has been laid waste for the
gratification of this human fiend and his vile followers."

As he spoke the tramp, tramp of men came through the window once more,
and Harry nodded.

"As so much depends upon the army's efficiency, this Mahdi, like his
predecessor, whose paltry tomb you have seen, has done his best to bring
the tribes up into as perfect a state of discipline as can be managed
with such wild beasts. They have plenty of modern rifles, and they know
how to use them, and they have been drilled sufficiently to make them
dangerous. Of course you know how."

"By imitating what they have seen in the troops sent against them," said
the doctor, as he sat listening intently to the sounds from without.

"By the help of renegades," said Harry bitterly. "I might have been one
of the Mahdi's generals--an