the Ladysmith telegrams and accusing their evil
fortune which kept them so far from the scene of action. But soon
strange rumours began to run about the bazaars of Omdurman of buried
weapons and whispers of revolt. For a few days a vague feeling of unrest
pervaded the native city, and then suddenly on the 12th of November came
precise and surprising news. The Khalifa was not retreating to the south
or to the west, but advancing northward with Omdurman, not El Obeid, as
his object. Emboldened by the spectacle of two successive expeditions
retreating abortive, and by, who shall say what wild exaggerated tales
of disasters to the Turks far beyond the limits of the Soudan, Abdullah
had resolved to stake all that yet remained to him in one last desperate
attempt to recapture his former capital; and so, upon the 12th of
November, his advanced guard, under the Emir Ahmed Fedil, struck the
Nile opposite Abba Island, and audaciously fired volleys of musketry at
the gunboat Sultan which was patrolling the river.

The name of Abba Island may perhaps carry the reader back to the very
beginning of this story. Here, eighteen years before, the Mahdi had
lived and prayed after his quarrel with the haughty Sheikh; here
Abdullah had joined him; here the flag of the revolt had been set up,
and the first defeat had been inflicted upon the Egyptian troops; and
here, too, still dwelt--dwells, indeed, to this day--one of those same
brothers who had pursued through all the vicissitudes and convulsions
which had shaken the Soudan his humble industry of building wooden
boats. It is surely a curious instance of the occasional symmetry of
history that final destruction should have befallen the last remains of
the Mahdist movement so close to the scene of its origin!

The news which had reached Khartoum set all wheels in motion. The IXth
and XIIIth Soudanese Battalions were mobilised on the 13th of November
and despatched at once to Abba Island under Colonel Lewis. Kitchener
hurried south from Cairo, and arrived in Khartoum on the 18th. A field
force of some 2,300 troops--one troop of cavalry, the 2nd Field
Battery, the 1st Maxim Battery, the Camel Corps, IXth Soudanese, XIIIth
Soudanese, and one company 2nd Egyptians--was immediately formed, and
the command entrusted to Sir Reginald Wingate. There were besides some
900 Arab riflemen and a few irregular mounted scouts. On the 20th
these troops were concentrated at Fashi Shoya, whence Colonel Lewis