ed on
till they are within sight of this camp; but when they have found out
that the wells are still unoccupied, and the army here quiet, they go
back again."

"If I go on horseback, Zaki, I shall want someone with me who will act
as a guide; and who will look after his horse and mine at some place
near the river, where he can find a hiding place while I am away in the
Dervish camp."

"Would you take me, my lord?" Zaki said quickly.

"I would much rather take you than anyone else, if you are willing to
go, Zaki."

"Surely I will go with my lord," the native said. "No one has ever been
so good to me as he has. If my lord is killed, I am ready to die with
him. He may count on me to do anything that he requires, even to go
with him into the Dervish camp. I might go as a slave, my lord."

"That would not do, Zaki. I do not wish to travel as a person who could
ride attended by a slave. People might say, 'Who is this man? Where
does he come from? How is it that no one knows a man who rides with a
slave?'

"My great object will be to enter the camp quietly, as one who has but
left half an hour before. When I have once entered it, and they ask
whence I came, I must tell them some likely story that I have made up:
as, for example, that I have come from El Obeid, and that I am an
officer of the governor there; that, finding he could not get away
himself, he yielded to my request that I might come, and help to drive
the infidels into the sea."

Zaki nodded.

"That would be a good tale, my lord, for men who have escaped from El
Obeid, and have come here, have said that the Khalifa's troops there
have not been called to join him at Omdurman; for it is necessary to
keep a strong force there, as many of the tribes of the province would
rise in rebellion, if they had the chance. Therefore you would not be
likely to meet anyone from El Obeid in Mahmud's camp."

"How is it, Zaki, that when so many in the Soudan have suffered at the
hands of the Dervishes, they not only remain quiet, but supply the
largest part of the Khalifa's army?"

"Because, my lord, none of them can trust the others. It is madness for
one tribe to rise, as the Jaalin did at Metemmeh. The Dervishes wiped
them out from the face of the earth. Many follow him because they see
that Allah has always given victory to the Mahdists; therefore the
Mahdi must be his prophet. Others join his army because their villages
have been destroyed, and their fields wasted,