these fellows are not to be trifled
with." That, indeed, was the general opinion in camp. The men were ready
and eager for another fight with the enemy, but there was little of the
light-hearted gaiety with which the contest had been anticipated before
they had met the Arabs at El-Teb. The idea that savages, however brave,
could cope with British troops with breech-loaders had then seemed
absurd; but the extraordinary bravery with which the Arabs had fought,
the recklessness with which they threw away their lives, and the
determination with which they had charged through a fire in which it
seemed impossible that any human being could live, had created a feeling
of respect. There was nothing contemptible about these foes, and it was
expected that not only would the force be very much larger than that met
at El-Teb, but as it would be composed of Osman Digma's best men, and
would be fighting under his eye, the battle would be much more hardly
contested than before. The cavalry were particularly impressed with the
formidable nature of these strange foemen. While they would have hurled
themselves fearlessly against far superior forces of the best cavalry of
Europe, they felt that here their discipline and mastery of their
horses went for little. They could charge through any number of the
enemy, but the danger lay not in the charge but after it. The Arab
tactics of throwing themselves down only to stab the horses as they rode
over them, and then rising up cutting and thrusting in their midst, were
strange and bewildering to them.

"I am game to charge a dozen squadrons of cavalry one after the other,"
a trooper said as they sat round the fire on the night of the 9th of
March, "and if we had orders to go at a square of infantry I should be
ready to go, although I might not like the job; but as for these
slippery black beggars, the less we have to do with them the better I
shall be pleased. You go at them, and you think you have got it all your
own way, and then before you can say knife there they are yelling and
shouting and sticking those ugly spears into you and your horses, and
dancing round until you don't fairly know what you are up to. There
ain't nothing natural or decent about it."

There was a general murmur of assent.

"We shall know more about their ways next time," another said. "But
lancers would be the best for this sort of work. There is no getting at
these beggars on the ground with our swords, for the hor