er chief many times, and
produced a sack of heads as evidence of his success. His loyalty being
thus placed beyond doubt, he was sent to keep contact with the Dervishes
and encouraged to the greatest efforts by the permission to appropriate
whatever spoils of war he could capture.

Meanwhile Ahmed Fedil was working his way slowly southward along a deep
khor which runs almost parallel to the Blue Nile and is perhaps
twenty miles from it. As soon as the position of the Dervish Emir
was definitely known, Colonel Lewis moved his force, which had been
strengthened by detachments of the Xth Soudanese, from Karkoj to
Rosaires. Here he remained for several days, with but little hope of
obstructing the enemy's passage of the river. On the 20th of
December, however, full--though, as was afterwards found, not very
accurate--information was received. It was reported that on the 18th
Ahmed Fedil had reached the village of Dakhila, about twenty miles south
of the Rosaires post; that he himself had immediately crossed with his
advanced guard, and was busily passing the women and children across the
river on rafts.

On the 22nd, therefore, Colonel Lewis hurried the Sheikh Bakr up the
west bank to cut off their flocks and harass the Dervishes who had
already crossed the river. The irregulars accordingly departed; and
the next day news was brought that the Dervish force was almost equally
divided by the Blue Nile, half being on one bank and half on the other.
At midday on the 24th the gunboats Melik and Dal arrived from Omdurman
with a detachment of 200 more men of the Xth Soudanese under Major
Fergusson, and thirty men of the IXth Soudanese under Captain Sir Henry
Hill. With this addition the force at Colonel Lewis's disposal consisted
of half the Xth Soudanese, a small detachment of the IXth Soudanese, two
Maxim guns, and a doctor. Besides the regular troops, there were also
the band of irregulars under the Sheikh Bakr, numbering 380 men, 100 men
under the Sheikh of Rosaires, and a few other unclassified scallywags.

Colonel Lewis determined to attack what part of Ahmed Fedil's force
still remained on the east bank of the river, and on Christmas Day, at
five o'clock in the afternoon, he marched with every man he could muster
in the direction of Dakhila.

Moving in single file along a track which led through a dense forest of
thorny trees, the column reached Adu Zogholi, a village thought to be
half, but really not one-third, of the