t those who looked away to the right saw a
different spectacle. What appeared to be an entirely new army was coming
down from the Kerreri Hills. While the soldiers looked and wondered,
fresh orders arrived. A mounted officer galloped up. There was a
report that terrible events were happening in the dust and smoke to
the northward. The spearmen had closed with MacDonald's brigade; were
crumpling his line from the flank; had already broken it. Such were
the rumours. The orders were more precise. The nearest regiment--the
Lincolnshire--was to hurry to MacDonald's threatened flank to meet the
attack. The rest of the brigade was to change front half right, and
remain in support. The Lincolnshires, breathless but elated, forthwith
started off again at the double. They began to traverse the rear
of MacDonald's brigade, dimly conscious of rapid movements by its
battalions, and to the sound of tremendous independent firing, which did
not, however, prevent them from hearing the venomous hiss of bullets.

Had the Khalifa's attack been simultaneous with that which was now
developed, the position of MacDonald's brigade must have been almost
hopeless. In the actual event it was one of extreme peril. The attack in
his front was weakening every minute, but the far more formidable
attack on his right rear grew stronger and nearer in inverse ratio.
Both attacks must be met. The moment was critical; the danger near. All
depended on MacDonald, and that officer, who by valour and conduct in
war had won his way from the rank of a private soldier to the command of
a brigade, and will doubtless obtain still higher employment, was equal
to the emergency.

To meet the Khalifa's attack he had arranged his force facing
south-west, with three battalions in line and the fourth held back in
column of companies in rear of the right flank--an inverted L-shaped
formation. As the attack from the south-west gradually weakened and
the attack from the north-west continually increased, he broke off his
battalions and batteries from the longer side of the L and transferred
them to the shorter. He timed these movements so accurately that each
face of his brigade was able to exactly sustain the attacks of the
enemy. As soon as the Khalifa's force began to waver he ordered the XIth
Soudanese and a battery on his left to move across the angle in which
the brigade was formed, and deploy along the shorter face to meet
the impending onslaught of Ali-Wad-Helu. Perce