Several Emirs and their men had been left on the battle-field to collect the plunder and bring it to the Beit el Mal. The thousands upon thousands of dead bodies which lay piled up in heaps, were divested of every stitch of clothing. Some time later the note-books of Colonel Farquhar and Mr. O'Donovan were sent to me. I read all they contained most carefully, and terribly sad reading it was! They both wrote much about the discord that existed, and of the quarrel between General Hicks and Ala ed Din Pasha. Farquhar attacked his chief somewhat severely for his military mistakes. Both had foreseen what had now occurred, and Farquhar reproached him bitterly for having ever started with a force whose condition and morale were such as to warrant certain disaster. The European officers got little assistance; apparently one of the few Egyptian officers who helped them was a certain Abbas Bey. One passage in Colonel Farquhar's diary I well remember; he wrote, "I spoke to Mr. O'Donovan to-day, and asked him where he thought we should be eight days hence? 'In Kingdom-Come,' was his reply." O'Donovan's journal was also written in much the same strain; he was greatly annoyed about Klootz's flight, and quoted it as an instance of the general feeling existing in the force. "What must be the condition of an army," he remarked, "when even a European servant deserts to the enemy?" In another passage he wrote, "I make my notes and write my reports, but who is going to take them home?"
Some fifteen days afterwards, when all the plunder had been deposited in the Beit el Mal, the Mahdi returned to El Obeid. Besides the guns, machine-guns, and rifles, a considerable sum of money had been found; but quantities of loot were carried off by the Arabs, in spite of the barbarous punishments for theft enacted by Ahmed Wad Suleiman: it was no uncommon thing for a thief to have both his right hand and left foot cut off. The cunning Blacks had secreted quantities of arms and ammunition in the forests and in their own camps, which at a later period proved very useful to them.
Nothing could have exceeded the savage grandeur of the Mahdi's triumphal entry into El Obeid after the battle. As he passed along, the people threw themselves on the ground and literally worshipped him. There is not the slightest doubt that by his victory at Shekan, the Mahdi had now the entire Sudan at his feet. From the Nile to the Red Sea, from Kordofan to the frontiers of Wadai, all looked to this holy man who had performed such wonders, and they eagerly awaited his next move. Those who had been already convinced of his divine mission were now of course more than ever his ardent supporters, and spread his fame far and wide; those who had doubted, doubted no longer; and the few who in their hearts understood the imposture, decided amongst themselves that if Government was not strong enough to send a force sufficient to uphold its authority even in the Nile districts, they must, against their own convictions, side with the stronger.
Several Europeans and some Egyptians living in the large cities and towns now realised the seriousness of the situation, and lost no time in making the best of their way out of the doomed country, or at any rate despatched north as much as they could of their portable property, well knowing that it was impossible to stay any longer in the Sudan, across which the Mahdi's hands now stretched from east to west.
CHAPTER IX.
THE FALL OF DARFUR.
Dara besieged by Madibbo—I make a Successful Counter-Attack—The Overthrow of Darho—I decide to remain at Dara—The Defeat of Kuku Agha—A Strange Expedient for concealing Letters—An Armistice proposed and accepted between Myself and the Besiegers—I resort to Stratagem to gain Time—Zogal writes from El Obeid, and describes the Annihilation of the Relief Expedition—I review the Situation and decide to surrender—Interview with Zogal at Shieria—The Mahdists enter Dara—Madibbo and his War-drums—Horrible Tortures inflicted on the Inhabitants who had concealed Money—The Siege and Fall of El Fasher—Letters from Egypt—The dreadful Fate of Major Hamada—The Fall of Bahr el Ghazal—I leave for El Obeid.
By this time I had recovered from my disease (filaria medenensis), and felt strong enough to undertake another expedition; but the number of my trusted followers had sadly diminished, and our stock of rifle ammunition was getting very low. Said Bey Guma still affirmed that it was impossible for him to send me any from Fasher, owing to the fact that the Zayedia and Maheria Arabs had begun to show signs of defection, and had been raiding cattle in the neighbourhood of the town, which they had refused to restore.