Rather than remain unoccupied on board the gunboat, Gregory went to Colonel Wingate's headquarters and said that he should be very glad if he would allow him, while the flotilla remained at Berber, to assist in interrogating the fugitives who arrived from the south, and the spies employed to gain early information of the intentions and movements of the enemy. The position of the Dervishes at Metemmeh was becoming critical. The Khalifa was desirous that Mahmud should return with his force to Omdurman, there to take part in the battle in which, as he was convinced, the invaders would be annihilated. Mahmud, who was of an eager and impetuous disposition, was anxious to take the offensive at once, and either to march upon Merawi and Dongola, or to drive the British out of Berber.  
There could be no doubt that his view was a more sagacious one than that of his father; and that the best tactics to be adopted were to harass the British advance, fall upon their convoys, cut their communications, and so oblige them to fall back for want of supplies. The Khalifa's mistake was similar to that made by Theodore in Abyssinia, and Koffee Kalkalli in Ashanti. Had either of these leaders adopted the system of harassing the invaders, from the moment they left the coast, it would have been next to impossible for the latter to arrive at their destination. But each allowed them to march on, unmolested, until within striking distance; then hazarded everything on the fortune of a single battle, and lost.
 
Mahmud made no movement in obedience to the Khalifa's orders to retire to Omdurman, and the latter thereupon refused to send any further supplies to him, and Mahmud's army was therefore obliged to rely upon raids and plunder for subsistence. These raids were carried out with great boldness, and villages situated within a few miles of Berber were attacked. The Dervishes, however, met with a much warmer reception than they had expected, for rifles and ammunition had been served out freely to the villagers; and these, knowing the fate that awaited them were the Dervishes victorious, offered so obstinate a resistance that the latter fell back, discomfited.
 
Early in January, the Sirdar learned that the Khalifa had changed his mind, and had sent peremptory orders to Mahmud to advance and drive the British out of Berber, and destroy the railway. Mahmud had now been joined by Osman Digna, with five thousand men; and as the Egyptian troops, well as they had fought, had never yet been opposed to so formidable a force as that which Mahmud commanded, the Sirdar telegraphed to England for white troops.
 
His request was at once complied with. The Warwickshires, Lincolnshires, and Cameron Highlanders were ordered to proceed from Cairo and Alexandria to the front; and the Seaforth Highlanders at Malta, and the Northumberland Fusiliers at Gibraltar were also despatched, without delay. Major General Gatacre was appointed to the command of the brigade.
 
At the end of the third week in January, the three regiments from Lower Egypt had arrived at Wady Halfa, and the Seaforths at Assouan. At the beginning of February the British brigade was carried, by railway, to Abu Dis. Here they remained until the 26th, when they marched to Berber, and then to a camp ten miles north of the Atbara, where they arrived on the 4th of March, having covered a hundred and forty-four miles in six days and a half, a great feat in such a climate.
 
Mahmud had made no movement until the 10th of February, when he began to cross the Nile to Shendy. This movement had not been expected by the Sirdar, and was hailed by him with satisfaction. Had Mahmud remained at Metemmeh he could, aided by the forts, his artillery, and the walled town, have offered a very formidable resistance. Had he marched along the banks of the Nile, he would have been exposed to the fire of the gunboats, but these could not have arrested his course. The country round Berber was favourable to the action of his cavalry, and if defeated he could have fallen back, unmolested, through Metemmeh on Omdurman; but by crossing the river he practically cut himself off from the Dervish base, and now had only a desert behind him; for we had taken over Kassala from the Italians, and the Egyptian battalion there, and a large force of friendly Arabs, would prevent him from retiring up the banks of the Atbara.
 
Mahmud's plan was to march along the Nile to Ahab, then to cross the desert to Hudi, at an angle of the river; whence a direct march, of twenty-five miles, would take him to Berber, and in this way he would avoid our strong position at the junction of the Atbara and the Nile. It would have been easy for the gunboats to prevent Mahmud from crossing the Nile, but the Sirdar was glad to allow him to do so. The movement afforded him time to concentrate his force, and to get up large supplies. For, each day, the distance that these could be transported by the railway had increased; and he saw that, when the time for fighting came, the victory would be a decisive one; and that few, indeed, of Mahmud's men would ever be able to make their way to Omdurman, and swell the Khalifa's force there.
 
On one occasion, however, the gunboats went up to watch what was going on, and take advantage of any opportunity that might offer to destroy some of Mahmud's boats, and thus render the work of his getting his force over slower and more difficult. An entrenchment had been thrown up at the point where the Dervishes crossed, and this had been manned by two hundred and fifty riflemen. The Zafir steamed up close to the bank and opened fire with her Maxims. Another gunboat sank one large craft and captured two others, and the troops landed and, covered by the fire of the guns, captured a fourth which had grounded in shallow water.
 
A smaller boat was halfway across the river when the gunboats arrived. It was seen that there were several women on board, and as the capture would have been of no value, no regard was paid to it. As it would have been as dangerous to return as to keep on, the boatmen plied their hardest to get across, but the stream carried them down near the Zafir. The boat was quite unnoticed, all eyes being intent upon the shore. She was passing about thirty yards astern of the gunboat, when a badly aimed shell from a Dervish battery struck her, and she sank almost instantly.
 
Gregory, who was superintending the working of the Maxim nearest the stern, looked round at the sound of the explosion. Several of the occupants had evidently been killed, but two or three of the boatmen started to swim to shore. Only two of the women came to the surface, struggling wildly and screaming for help. With scarcely a thought of what he was doing, Gregory unclasped his sword belt, dropped his pistol, and sprang overboard.
 
One of the women had sunk before he reached them, the other was on the point of doing so, when he caught her by the arm. She at once clung to him, and he had hard work to disengage her arm from his neck; then, after turning her so that her face was above water, he looked round. The gunboat was already a hundred yards away. Her wheel was revolving, so as to keep her in her place facing the redoubt, and the stream was driving him fast away from her.
 
Within ten yards of him was a black head, and a moment later Zaki was beside him. He had been working at Gregory's Maxim, and had suddenly missed his master. Looking round, he had seen him struggling with the woman in the stream, and without hesitation had leapt overboard.
 
"I am sorry you came," Gregory said, "for it is only throwing away your life. It is of no use shouting, for they could not hear us in that din; and if they happened to catch sight of us, would take us for two of the black boatmen. I see the stream is taking us nearer to the bank."
 
Zaki had taken hold of the woman while he was speaking.
 
"We might swim a long way down, master, if we let go of her."
 
"I won't do that, Zaki. I know now that I was a fool to jump overboard; but now that I have done so, I will save her life. Besides, I could not swim very far even without her. I am feeling the weight of my boots and clothes.
 
"Will you swim with us till I can touch the ground, and then leave us? Strike right into the river again--I know that you are a good swimmer--and drop down the stream until you reach one of the islands, and then you can land and hail the gunboats as they come down. Tell Captain Keppel why I jumped over."
 
"I am not going to leave you, master. No doubt the Dervishes will shoot me, but my life is of no consequence, and I shall be glad to die by the side of so good a master."
 
The woman, who had ceased to struggle when Gregory shook off her grasp, was now conscious; as, with one of them supporting her on each side, her head was above water.
 
"They will not kill you," she said. "You have saved me, and they will be grateful."
 
Gregory had no faith whatever in Dervish gratitude.
 
"Well, Zaki," he said, "if you will not leave us, we will strike at once for the shore. The gunboats are nearly half a mile away now. There is just a chance that we may not have been noticed by the Dervishes, and may be able to hide in the bushes till the gunboats return. When they see me, they will at once send a boat ashore, under cover of their fire, and take us off."
 
"There is a good chance of that, master," Zaki said cheerfully, "and the Dervishes are busy up there fighting, and will not think much of a little boat."
 
Three or four minutes later they were in shallow water. As soon as they landed, Gregory threw himself down, utterly exhausted; and the woman sank down beside him, but not before hastily rearranging her veil. In a couple of minutes, Gregory roused himself.
 
"I can climb the bank, now," he said, "and the sooner we are hidden among the bushes, the better."
 
But as he spoke he heard the sound of galloping horsemen, and almost immediately an Emir, on a magnificent animal, followed by a dozen Dervishes, dashed up.
 
"Mahmud!" the woman cried, as she rose to her feet; "it is I, Fatma!"
 
Mahmud gave a cry of joy, and waved his hand to his followers, who had already pointed their rifles at Gregory.
 
"These have saved me, my lord," the woman went on. "They jumped from their boat, and reached me just as I was sinking, and have borne me up. For my sake you must spare their lives."
 
Mahmud frowned. He dismounted and went up to his wife.
 
"Have I not sworn, Fatma," he said, "that I would slay every unbeliever who falls into my hands? How, then, can I spare even one who has saved your life?"
 
"Others have been spared who have been of service, my lord," she said. "There are Greeks and Egyptians who work your guns, and they were spared because they were useful. There is Neufeld, who lives under the protection of the Khalifa. Surely these men have done far more to deserve, not only life, but honour at your hands. They risked their lives to save mine. What follower of the Prophet could do more? They could not have known who I was, a woman they saw drowning. Are there any among the bravest of the tribes who would have done the same?"
 
"I have sworn an oath," Mahmud said, gloomily.
 
"But you have not sworn to slay instantly. You can keep them, at least, until you can take them before the Khalifa, and say to him:
 
"'Father, I have sworn to kill unbelievers, but these men have saved Fatma's life; and I pray you to absolve me from the oath, or order them to be taken from me, and then do you yourself pardon them and set them free for the service that they have rendered me.'
 
"If he refuses, if these men are killed, I also swear that, as my life is due to them, I myself will perish by my own hands, if they die for saving it!"
 
"It needs not that, Fatma. You think that I am ungrateful, that I do not feel that these men have acted nobly, thus to risk their lives to save a strange woman whose face they have never seen. It is my oath that lies heavily upon me. I have never been false to an oath."
 
"Nor need you be now," Fatma said earnestly. "You swore to slay any unbeliever that fell into your hands. This man has not fallen into your hands. I have a previous claim to him. He is under my protection. I cover him with my robe"--and she swept a portion of her garment round Gregory--"and as long as he is under it he is, according to tribal laws, safe even from the vengeance of my husband!
 
"As to the other, he is not an unbeliever. Your oath concerns him not. Him you can honour and reward, according to the value you place upon my life."
 
The Arab's face cleared.
 
"Truly you have discovered a way out of it, Fatma, at any rate for the present."
 
He turned to Gregory for the first time.
 
"Do you speak our tongue?" he asked.
 
"Yes, Emir, as well as my own."
 
"Then you understand what we have said. Had I not been bound by my oath, I would have embraced you as a brother. We Arabs can appreciate a brave deed, even when it is done by an enemy. When one of the boatmen ran into the battery where I was directing the guns against your boat, and said that the boat in which my wife, with other women, were crossing had been sunk, by a shell from our batteries on the other side, I felt that my blood was turned to water. He said he believed that all had been killed or drowned, but that he looked back as he swam, and saw a white man jump overboard, and a short time after another followed him; and that, when he reached the shore, they were supporting a woman in the water.
 
"I rode hither, having but small hope indeed that it was my wife, but marvelling much that a white officer should thus risk his life to save a drowning woman. My oath pressed heavily upon me, as I rode. Even had it been but a slave girl whom you rescued, I should no less have admired your courage. I myself am said to be brave, but it would never have entered my mind thus to risk my life for a stranger. When I found that it was my wife who was saved, I still more bitterly regretted the oath that stood between me and her preserver, and truly glad am I that she has herself shown me how I can escape from its consequences.
 
"Now I see you, I wonder even more than before at what you have done; for indeed, in years, you are little more than a boy."
 
"What I did, Emir, I believe any white officer who was a good swimmer would have done. No Englishman would see a woman drowning without making an effort to save her, if he had it in his power. As to the fact that she was not of the same race or religion, he would never give it a thought. It would be quite enough for him that she was a woman."
 
"And you," Mahmud said, turning to Zaki, "you are a Jaalin, are you not?"
 
"I am."
 
"Jaalin or Baggara, you are my friend," Mahmud said, placing his hand on Zaki's shoulders. "And so you, too, leapt overboard to save a woman?"
 
"No, Emir," he replied, "I jumped over because my master jumped over. I had not thought about the woman. I jumped over to aid him, and it was to give him my help that I took my share in supporting the woman. The Bimbashi is a good master, and I would die for him."
 
Mahmud smiled at this frank answer.
 
"Nevertheless, whatever may have been your motive, you were enabled to save the life of my wife, and henceforth you are my friend."
 
Then he turned to the horsemen, who were still grouped on the bank above.
 
"You have heard what has been said? The white man is under the protection of my harem; the Jaalin is henceforth my friend."
 
Mahmud was a fine specimen of the tribesmen of the Soudan--tall, well built, and with pure Arab features. He was the Khalifa's favourite son; and was generous, with kindly impulses, but impatient of control. Of late, he had given way to outbursts of passion, feeling acutely the position in which he was placed. He had advanced from Omdurman confident that he should be able to drive the infidels before him, and carry his arms far into Egypt. His aspirations had been thwarted by the Khalifa. His requests for stores and camels that would have enabled him to advance had been refused, and he had been ordered to fall back. His troops had been rendered almost mutinous, from the want of supplies.
 
He had seen the invaders growing stronger and stronger, and accomplishing what had seemed an impossibility--the bringing up of stores sufficient for their sustenance--by pushing the railroad forward towards Berber. Now that their forces had been very greatly increased, and the issue of the struggle had become doubtful, he had received the order for which he had been craving for months; and had been directed to march down and attack the Egyptian army, drive them across the Nile, and destroy the railway.
 
By means of spies he had heard that, ere long, a large force of British soldiers would come up to reinforce the Egyptians; so that what might have been easy work, two months before, had now become a difficult and dangerous enterprise. The manner in which the Dervishes had been defeated in their attacks upon Wolseley's desert column, and in the engagements that had since taken place, showed how formidable was the fighting power, not only of the British troops, but of the native army they had organized; and his confidence in the power of the tribesmen to sweep all before them had been shaken.
 
The Dervishes scowled, when they heard that they were not to have the satisfaction of massacring this Englishman, whose countrymen were still keeping up a terrible fire on their redoubt. It was not one of their wives who had been rescued, and Gregory's act of jumping overboard seemed to them to savour of madness; and if that plea had been advanced, they would have recognized it as rendering the person of the man who had performed it inviolable. However, as he was under the protection of their leader's harem, there was nothing more to be said; and at an order from Mahmud all but four of them rode off, while the others fell in behind him.
 
Mahmud did not mount again, but walked with his wife to a deserted mud hut, two hundred yards away. There he left her, telling Gregory and Zaki to sit down outside, and placing the four men on guard.
 
"I must rejoin my men," he said, as he mounted. "When your vessels have gone, I will return."
 
Half an hour later, the fire ceased. Soon afterwards Mahmud rode up with a score of men, followed by some dozen women, and a slave leading a donkey. On this Fatma took her seat, and the women surrounded her. Gregory and Zaki walked close behind them. Mahmud, with his horsemen, rode in front.
 
After proceeding for a mile, they came upon a group of tents. Mahmud's banner was flying on a pole in front of the largest of these. Behind, and touching it, was another almost as large. This was the abode of the ladies of Mahmud's harem. The other tents were occupied by his principal Emirs. A hundred yards away was the encampment of the army, which was sheltered in hastily constructed huts, or arbours, made of bushes.
 
By Mahmud's order, a small tent was erected, with blankets, close to the after entrance into the harem tent, for Gregory's use; so that, should he be attacked by fanatics, he could at once take refuge in the harem, whose sanctity not even the most daring would dare to violate.
 
A handsome robe was brought for Zaki; and as Mahmud presented it to him, he said:
 
"You are my friend, but you must now go back to your vessels, or to Berber. My orders were to kill all the Jaalin, and we have spared none who fell into our hands, at Metemmeh or since. I cannot keep you here. As long as you stay by my side, you will be safe; but you could not leave me for a moment. It is as much as I can do to save the life of this infidel officer, and it is to him that I owe most, for it was he who first leapt into the river.
 
"The white men's boats have already fastened up, behind the island where they before stationed themselves. Make your way down there, at daybreak, and wave a white cloth. Doubtless they will send a boat ashore, thinking that you bear a message from me; or if you see they do not do this, you can swim out to them."
 
"I would rather stay with my master. Cannot you let him go, too?"
 
"That is impossible," Mahmud said shortly. "It is known throughout the camp that I have a white man here. The news will travel fast to the Khalifa. My actions have already been misrepresented to him, and were I to let this officer go, my father might recall me to Omdurman and send another to command here.
 
"He must stay, but you may go without harm. You can scarcely have been noticed yet, and I can well declare, should the Khalifa hear of you, that you have escaped."
 
"May I speak with my master?" Zaki said. "If he says stay, I shall stay, though it might cost me my life. If he says go, I must go."
 
"You may speak to him," Mahmud said.
 
Zaki went round to Gregory's tent, and told him what Mahmud had said.
 
"Go, certainly, Zaki. You can do me no good by remaining here, and might even do me harm; for if you were killed I also might be murdered. Moreover, I wish to send the news of my capture, and how it occurred. I do not think any, save yourself, noticed that I was missing; and when the fight was over, and they found that I was absent, they might suppose that I had been shot and had fallen overboard.
 
"I will write a note for you to carry. It is, in all respects, better that you should go. Were we to be seen talking together, it might be supposed that we were planning some way of escape, and I should be more closely watched. As it is, I see that Mahmud will have difficulty in protecting me. Were you to ride about with him, as he says, your presence would remind his followers that he has a white man a captive here; whereas, if I remain almost in concealment near the harem, the fact that there is a white man here will pass out of the minds of those who know it, and will not become the common talk of the camp.
 
"Mahmud is running some risk in having spared my life, and I do not wish to make it harder for him. Go, therefore, and tell him that you will leave tonight. I cannot write now; my pocketbook is soaked through. But I will tear out some leaves and dry them in the sun; and write what I have to say, before you start. I shall speak highly of you in my letter, and recommend you to Colonel Wingate; who will, I have no doubt, give you employment.
 
"I hope I shall see you again, before long. I am very sorry that we must part, but it is best for us both."
 
Very reluctantly, Zaki returned to Mahmud.
 
"My master says I must go, Emir; and I must obey his orders, though I would rather stay with him. Tonight, I will leave."
 
"It is well. I would that I could let him go, also, but my oath prevents me from giving him his freedom. I trust, however, t............