ence, they moved without haste or hurry into the
new position, scarcely glancing at the torrent which was rushing on
towards them.

Not less steadily and quietly did the 11th, considered to be the crack
regiment of the brigade, swing round; and as calmly and firmly did the
Egyptian battalion--composed of the peasants who, but twenty years
before, had been considered among the most cowardly of people, a host
of whom would have fled before a dozen of the dreaded Dervishes--march
into the gap between the two black regiments, and manfully hold their
own.

And yet, he could not but feel sorry for the valiant savages who, under
so awful a fire, still pressed forward to certain death; their numbers
withering away at every step, until they dwindled to nothing, only to
be replaced by a fresh band, which darted forward to meet a similar
fate; and yet, when he remembered the wholesale slaughter at Metemmeh,
the annihilation of countless villages and of their inhabitants, and,
above all, the absolute destruction of the army of Hicks Pasha, the
capture of Khartoum, the murder of Gordon, and the reduction to a state
of slavery of all the peaceful tribes of the Soudan, he could not but
feel that the annihilation of these human tigers, and the wiping out of
their false creed, was a necessity.

When the last shot was fired, he dismounted and leant against his
horse, completely unnerved by the tremendous excitement that had been
compressed into the space of half an hour. Zaki was in ecstasy at the
victory. The ruthless massacre of so many of his tribesmen, the ruin of
his native village, and the murder of his relations was avenged, at
last. The reign of the Dervishes was over. Henceforth men could till
their fields in peace. It was possible that, even yet, he might find
his mother and sisters still alive, in the city but a few miles away,
living in wretched existence as slaves of their captors.

Tears of joy streamed down his cheeks. He would have liked to help to
revenge the wrongs of his tribe, but his master needed him; and
moreover, there was no place for an untrained man in the ranks of the
Soudanese regiments. They were doing their work better than he could.
Still, it was the one bitter drop in his intense joy, that he had not
been able to aid in the conflict.

He expressed this to Gregory.

"You have had your share in the fight, Zaki, just as I have had. I have
not fired a shot, but I have been in the battle, and run its ri