Hadendoa and almost destroyed
the Degheim and Kenana? What should draw them up the Nile? Is it for
plunder, or in sheer love of war; or is it a blood feud that brings
them? True, they are now far off. Perchance they will return, as they
returned before. Yet the iron road is not built in a day, nor for a day,
and of a surety there are war-clouds in the north.

CHAPTER IV: THE YEARS OF PREPARATION

In the summer of 1886, when all the troops had retreated to Wady Halfa
and all the Soudan garrisons had been massacred, the British people
averted their eyes in shame and vexation from the valley of the Nile. A
long succession of disasters had reached their disgraceful culmination.
The dramatic features added much to the bitterness and nothing to the
grandeur of the tragedy. The cost was heavy. Besides the pain produced
by the death of General Gordon, the heavy losses in officers and men,
and the serious expenditure of public money, the nation smarted under
failure and disappointment, and were, moreover, deeply sensible that
they had been humiliated before the whole world. The situation in
Egypt was scarcely more pleasing. The reforms initiated by the
British Administrators had as yet only caused unpopularity. Baring's
interference galled the Khedive and his Ministers. Vincent's parsimony
excited contempt. Moncrieff's energy had convulsed the Irrigation
Department. Wood's army was the laughing-stock of Europe. Among and
beneath the rotten weeds and garbage of old systems and abuses the new
seed was being sown. But England saw no signs of the crop; saw only
the stubborn husbandmen begrimed with the dust and dirt, and herself
hopelessly involved in the Egyptian muddle: and so in utter weariness
and disgust, stopping her ears to the gibes and cat-calls of the Powers,
she turned towards other lands and other matters.

When the attention of the nation was again directed to Egypt the scene
was transformed. It was as though at the touch of an angel the dark
morasses of the Slough of Despond had been changed to the breezy slopes
of the Delectable Mountains. The Khedive and his Ministers lay quiet and
docile in the firm grasp of the Consul-General. The bankrupt State was
spending surpluses upon internal improvement. The disturbed Irrigation
Department was vivifying the land. The derided army held the frontier
against all comers. Astonishment gave place to satisfaction, and
satisfaction grew into delight. The haunting nightm