It was near midnight when the pursuers came back. They had prosecuted their chase to the frontier wilderness; they had found the villages all deserted by their inhabitants, and had obtained such stores of plunder that enough was accumulated to keep our whole caravan for a month.
This had been the most energetic attack that the enemy had yet attempted; it was made exclusively by the A-Banga, no Niam-niam having as yet appeared upon the scene. The arrival of Wando, with all his force, was expected the next day.
Early, therefore, on the following morning half of our little armament was sent forward to the north, not merely to anticipate any movement on Wando’s part, but, if possible, to accomplish the object of obtaining some women as hostages, who might be exchanged for the still undiscovered ivory. Mohammed was annoyed at the previous failures to secure any women, knowing by experience that hardly any ransom is accounted too large by the Niam-niam for the recovery of their wives.
About two hours after the departure of our soldiers a singular sight arrested our attention. Marching along in single file upon the top of the opposite slope, which was separated from our camp by the woody depression and the brook, we saw a lengthened train of armed natives, who by their large quadrangular shields gleaming in the sun could be at once recognised as A-Banga. The procession seemed unending; it occupied fully three hours in passing, and at the lowest computation must have consisted of 10,000 or 12,000 men. It was at first the general impression that the chieftain had arrived with the main body of his troops. It was conjectured that he intended to make a circuit to the west, and, having crossed the brook, to attack us at nightfall from the same quarter as our assailants of the previous day. But our fears were not realised, and we remained utterly unable to reconcile the manœuvres we had witnessed with the absence of Wando, which was still a mystery to us, as he might have been joined by all his allies in the course of a single day. Everything, however, was made clear to us when our soldiers returned at night from their plundering expeditions. They told us that on arriving in the morning at the hamlets they had found the fighting force of the A-Banga all drawn up, evidently waiting in anxious suspense for the assistance of Wando, but that on their approach this large body of men immediately vacated their post. Thus the long train that had caused us so much bewilderment was simply the 10,000 natives retreating at the advance of a detachment of forty or fifty of our soldiers.
WANDO’S RETREAT.
Upon the gradual slope on which our camp-enclosure was situated, the white ant-hills, that often rise to an altitude of ten feet, were the only eminences whence any extended view could be obtained across the long grass of the steppe. These were nearly always occupied by the natives, who mounted them for the purpose of getting a better vantage-ground for shouting their menaces and invective insults, but occasionally they answered another end: they served to allow the outposts of the contending parties to hold communication with each other. Amongst Mohammed’s trained soldiers he had no less than forty Niam-niam, who were very devoted to him. These would appear to have held some correspondence with the enemy, and from them we learnt that the A-Banga were greatly irritated at the conduct of Wando, who, after urging them to attack us, had left them in the lurch. They complained that all they had got from their acquiescence in his wish was that the “Turks” had killed their fellow-comrades and laid waste their land. Wando himself, they said, had had an unpropitious augury at the beginning of the fray, and, intimidated at the prospect, had abandoned his scheme; he had withdrawn to the recesses of the forest, and, in spite of the remonstrances of the A-Banga, he now refused to render them any aid.
The little wooden bench, the “boroo,” which I have already described, was also consulted in our own camp. My two Niam-niam, who were no great heroes, although they had an almost unlimited confidence in Wando’s power, had a still more unbounded reliance upon the answers of their wooden oracle. The test had been very unfavourable for one of them, but I was told that it had promised a safe escape for myself, a circumstance that once again confirmed my people in their opinion of my unchangeable good luck. The A-Banga did indeed make an exception in my favour when they shouted their defiance from the ant-hills; the Turks, they vowed, should perish, but the white man might go scot-free, because it was the first time of his coming to their land. The quietness and retirement of my daily occupation, my interested delight in studying the peculiarities of those I saw, and perhaps, too, my reputation of being a harmless “leaf-eater,” all seem to have conspired to gain me a general good-will.
Little Tikkitikki was perfectly unmoved by all the proceedings; he showed no sign of fear; he skipped about and played with the war-trophies; but chiefly he stuffed himself with sesame-pap, of which there was a lavish abundance at his disposal.
On the fourth morning the enemy had entirely vanished; the inhabitants, too, had all utterly gone. Throughout the period of warfare, the Nubians, neither in courage nor in endurance, had come out particularly strong. The main burden of the contest had fallen upon the “Farookh.” As a matter of fact, however, the Nubian regulars and the black Farookh are equally indispensable to every commander of an expedition. The native soldiers may be the better shots, and they have the advantage of knowing the country more thoroughly and of being accustomed to the climate; moreover, on rainy days (when the Nubians would sit shivering in their huts) they will wrap their guns in their girdles and with the greatest alacrity go perfectly naked over wood and steppe to repel an advancing foe; but, at the same time, there is always the risk of their decamping at a moment’s provocation,—a dilemma into which a commander would not be led by the Nubians, who would be afraid of deserting at such a distance from Khartoom. The Nubians, however, are much more often ailing; they are never perfectly tractable, having an unconquerable aversion to all restraint; they never showed themselves as remarkably valiant in our conflicts with the savages, and were in continual apprehension of being devoured. It was not so much death in itself of which they were afraid, as of being deprived of the rites of burial, which are prescribed in the Koran as indispensable for obtaining the palm of Paradise. The lack of a grave is abhorrent to the notions of every Mussulman, but the idea of being destined for the unclean stomach of a cannibal was intolerable.
Mohammed, encouraged by the favourable progress of his wound, now expressed his desire to quit our present quarters. I endeavoured to dissuade him from his purpose, and represented to him that, although the wound had closed without any suppuration, any exertion would have a tendency to open it afresh; but he persisted in his purpose, and determined upon being carried in a litter across the hostile territory. In consequence of the journey the complete healing was thrown back for a fortnight; but altogether I congratulated myself that my amateur surgery, which had hitherto been practised mainly on horses and mules, had proved so satisfactory.