Every day these recruits were drilled; the discipline was of the strictest, but they would have suffered torture if they thought by so doing they could assist the Mahdi.
Ponsonby had won over the chief of the Shiluk tribe to his ideas, and five thousand men were ready to take the field against the Mahdists.
“Why wait?” asked Hubert Pasha, as he was called.
“Will the Governor of the Soudan object?” asked the chief of the Shiluk.
“The Governor of Fashoda will soon be Sultan of Egypt, and you will be the governor general of the Soudan.”
And the poor barbarian was fired with ambition, and ready to fight against anybody, or any nation, as Ponsonby should direct.
CHAPTER XXV.
VICTORY.
“Max, if anything happens to me, will you be good to Girzilla?” asked Ibrahim, one night.
“Anything happen? What do you mean?”
“I feel that we are about to have a battle, and I may fall.”