ly expecting tidings of his army.
The long silence of thirty days which followed their plunge into the
mountains filled him with fear, and Ohrwalder relates that he 'aged
visibly' during that period. But his judgment was proved by the event,
and the arrival of a selected assortment of heads turned doubt to
triumph. The Dervishes did not long remain in Abyssinia, as they
suffered from the climate. In December the army returned to Gallabat,
which they commenced to fortify, and their victorious general followed
his grisly but convincing despatch to Omdurman, where he received the
usual welcome accorded by warlike peoples to military heroes. But the
famous and faithful slave may have been more gratified by the tears of
joy which his master and sovereign shed on beholding him again safe and
successful.

The greater struggle was still to come. The whole of Abyssinia was
convulsed with fury, and King John in person prepared to take the field
and settle the quarrel for ever. He assembled a mighty host, which is
said to have amounted to 130,000 foot and 20,000 horsemen. The rumours
of this formidable concentration reached Gallabat and Omdurman, and
in spite of the recent victory caused deep alarm. The Khalifa saw his
frontiers--even his existence--menaced, for King John had declared that
he would sweep the Dervishes from off the face of the earth: and in the
hour of need the general on whom so much depended died of some poisonous
medicine with which he had endeavoured to cure himself of indigestion.
Abu Anga was buried in his red-brick house at Gallabat amid the
lamentations of his brave black soldiers, and gloom pervaded the whole
army. But, since the enemy were approaching, the danger had to be faced.
The Khalifa appointed Zeki Tummal, one of Anga's lieutenants, to the
command of the forces at Gallabat, which by strenuous exertions he
brought up to a total of 85,000 men. King John sent word that he was
coming, lest any should say that he had come secretly as a thief.
The Dervishes resolved to remain on the defensive, and, fortifying
themselves in an enormous zeriba around the town, awaited the onslaught.

At dawn on the 9th of March, 1889, the Abyssinians came within sight of
their enemies, and early the next morning the battle began. Great clouds
of dust obscured the scene, and all intelligible sounds were lost in
the appalling din. The Abyssinians, undaunted by the rifle fire of the
Soudanese, succeeded in setting the zerib