es of the Mahdi, had they poured down into Egypt. The
native Egyptian army was, as yet, in the earliest stage of
organization; and could not be relied upon to stand firm against the
wild rush of the Dervishes. Fortunately, time was given for that
organization to be completed; and when, at last, the Dervish forces
marched north, they were repulsed. Assouan was saved, and Wady Halfa
became the Egyptian outpost.

Gradually, preparations were made for taking the offensive. A railway
was constructed along the banks of the Nile, and a mixed force of
British and Egyptians drove the enemy beyond Dongola; then, by
splendidly organized labour, a railroad was made from Wady Halfa,
across the desert, towards the elbow of the great bend from Dongola to
Abu Hamed. The latter place was captured, by an Egyptian brigade moving
up from the former place; and from that moment, the movement was
carried on with irresistible energy.

The railway was pushed forward to Abu Hamed; and then southward, past
Berber, up to the Atbara river. An army of twenty thousand men, under
one of the Khalifa's sons, was attacked in a strong position and
defeated with immense loss. Fresh British troops were then brought up;
and, escorted by gunboats and steamers carrying provisions, the army
marched up the Nile, crushed the Khalifa's great host before Omdurman,
and recovered possession of Khartoum.

Then, the moving spirit of this enterprise, the man whose marvellous
power of organization had secured its success, was called to other
work. Fortunately, he had a worthy successor in Colonel Wingate; who,
with a native force, encountered that which the Khalifa had again
gathered, near El Obeid, the scene of the total destruction of the army
under Hicks Pasha; routed it with ease, killing the Khalifa and all his
principal emirs. Thus a land that had been turned into a desert, by the
terrible tyranny of the Mahdi and his successor, was wrested from
barbarism and restored to civilization; and the stain upon British
honour, caused by the desertion of Gordon by the British ministry of
the day, was wiped out.

It was a marvellous campaign--marvellous in the perfection of its
organization, marvellous in the completeness of its success.

G. A. Henty.

Chapter 1: Disinherited.

"Wanted, an active and intelligent young man, for general work, in a
commercial house having a branch at Alexandria. It is desirable that he
should be able to write a good hand; and, if