ack, perchance, my brother," murmured the dervish.

"And yet they are not many--3,000 at the most."

"And we 10,000, with the Prophet's grip upon our spear-hafts and his
words upon our banner. See to their chieftain, how he rides upon the
right and looks up at us with the glass that sees from afar! It may be
that he sees this also." The Arab shook his sword at the small clump of
horsemen who had spurred out from the square.

"Lo! he beckons," cried the dervish; "and see those others at the
corner, how they bend and heave. Ha! by the Prophet, I had thought it."
As he spoke, a little woolly puff of smoke spurted up at the corner of
the square, and a 7 lb. shell burst with a hard metallic smack just over
their heads. The splinters knocked chips from the red rocks around
them.

"Bismillah!" cried the Hadendowa; "if the gun can carry thus far, then
ours can answer to it. Ride to the left, Moussa, and tell Ben Ali to
cut the skin from the Egyptians if they cannot hit yonder mark.
And you, Hamid, to the right, and see that 3,000 men lie close in the
wady that we have chosen. Let the others beat the drum and show the
banner of the Prophet, for by the black stone their spears will have
drunk deep ere they look upon the stars again."

A long, straggling, boulder-strewn plateau lay on the summit of the red
hills, sloping very precipitously to the plain, save at one point, where
a winding gully curved downwards, its mouth choked with sand-mounds and
olive-hued scrub. Along the edge of this position lay the Arab host--a
motley crew of shock-headed desert clansmen, fierce predatory slave
dealers of the interior, and wild dervishes from the Upper Nile, all
blent together by their common fearlessness and fanaticism. Two races
were there, as wide as the poles apart--the thin-lipped, straight-haired
Arab and the thick-lipped, curly negro--yet the faith of Islam had bound
them closer than a blood tie. Squatting among the rocks, or lying
thickly in the shadow, they peered out at the slow-moving square beneath
them, while women with water-skins and bags of dhoora fluttered from
group to group, calling out to each other those fighting texts from the
Koran which in the hour of battle are maddening as wine to the true
believer. A score of banners waved over the ragged, valiant crew, and
among them, upon desert horses and white Bishareen camels, were the
Emirs and Sheiks who were to lead them against the infidels.

As the Sheik