The officer had stopped in astonishment, at hearing this seeming Dervish address him, by name, in English. He then advanced, giving an order to his men to fall back.
"Is it really you, Hilliard?" he said, as he approached the horsemen, who were coming forward at a walk. "Which of you is it? For I don't see any resemblance, in either of you."
"It is I, Leslie. I am not surprised that you don't know me."
"But what are you masquerading for, in this dress; and where have you come from?"
"Perhaps I had better not say, Leslie. I have been doing some scouting across the desert, with my boy here. We have had a long ride. In the first place, my arm wants attending to. I have a bullet in the shoulder. The next thing we need is something to eat; for the last three days we have had nothing but dates, and not too many of them.
"Is there any chance of getting taken up to Merawi? We came down from there to Korti, in a native vessel."
"Yes; a gunboat with some native craft will be going up this afternoon. I will give orders, at once, that your horses shall be put on board."
When the ball had been extracted from his shoulder, and the wound dressed and bandaged by the surgeon in charge, Gregory went up to the tents again, where he was warmly received by the three white officers of the Negro regiment. Breakfast already had been prepared, Zaki being handed over to the native officers. After having made a hearty meal, Gregory related the adventure with the Arabs in the desert, merely saying that they had found there were no Dervishes at Gakdul.
"But why didn't you go straight back, instead of coming down here?"
"I wanted to see whether this line was open, and whether there were any wells on it. We only found one, and it took us four or five hours' hard work to get at the water. It is lucky, indeed, that we did so; for our horses were getting very done up, and I had begun to think that they would not reach our destination alive."