The total strength of the advanced force at Korti, after the departure of Roland's regiment, was under two thousand five hundred men, with six screw guns, two thousand two hundred camels and horses, two pinnaces, and sixty-four whale boats, while the 19th Hussars, when the advance began, had orders to ride by the western bank of the Nile and act as scouts to the Khartoum relief column.
By this time there was not a single sound garment in the latter—the result of fifty days' river work from Sarras. The mud-stained helmets were battered out of all shape; the tunics and trousers were patched with cloth of every kind and hue; officers and men had beards of many days' growth, and the skin of their faces was peeled off in strange and uncouth patches, the result of incessant exposure to the fierce sun by day and the chill dews by night.
Christmas morning, 1884, was ushered in by a church parade, and by prayer, when the whole force—slender though it was—was present, under the feathery palms, by the banks of the Nile, that river of mystery, which has its rise in a land unknown; and at night the soldiers gathered round two great camp-fires and made merry, singing songs, and doubtless thinking of those who were far away at home.
It was on this occasion that the South Staffordshire, under the gallant Eyre, raised three hearty cheers, when, from the rear, a telegram was brought, sent all the way from their second battalion in England, wishing 'all ranks a happy Christmas and a brilliant campaign.'
And happy and jolly all certainly were, though they were now in the region of bully-beef, for they fared on hard biscuits and coffee in the morning, with bully-beef for tiffin, and bully-beef for dinner.
As the evening of Christmas Day closed in, Roland, with a cigarette in his mouth, reclined on the grass under a mimosa bush, watching the picturesque groups of tanned and tattered soldiers that hovered round the two great watch-fires, which cast weird patches of light on the feathery palms, the glittering piles of arms, the few white tents occupied by Lord Wolseley's staff and officers of rank; on the long rows of picketed camels; on the distant figures of the advanced sentinels seen darkly against the sky of pale green and orange that showed where the sun had set beyond Gebel Magaya in the Bayuda Desert; on the quaint boats and barges moored in the Nile; and on the broad flow of that majestic river, reddened as it was by the flames, to which the active hands and sharp bill-hooks of the soldiers added fuel every moment; while the high spirits of the troops—seldom wont to flag—were irrepressible then in the great hope of getting on—getting on and reaching Khartoum—to shake hands with Gordon ere it might be—too late!
In three days the South Staffordshire were to start and take the lead in that eventful expedition, and led by jovial Dick Mostyn, Wilton, and other kindred spirits; already the soldiers were chorusing a song with which they meant to bend their oars; and more than once, as they sang, they turned to where their favourite officer, Roland Lindsay, lay looking on, for he was one of those men who are by nature and habit born to be the leader of others, and possessing that kind of magnetic influence which inspires confidence.
Roland had plenty of spirit, bodily vigour, and perseverance; but when a halt came, and with it a brief term of rest, he could not help indulging in occasional regretful thoughts, haunting memories, and wishes that were hopeless. He had, as Annot anticipated, got over his rudely-dispelled passion for her, true love it could not have been, he flattered himself now, and he was fully justified in dismissing her from his mind; and in that matter he was disturbed by the fact no more 'than a nightmare disturbs the occupations of the dreamer, as he goes about his business on the following day in the full light of heaven, and with his brain clear of the idle fantasies of the darkness.'
But now he could not help thinking of Hester Maule, especially as he had seen her last, when she stood at the door of Merlwood, and murmured good-bye, her hand in his, her dark blue eyes dimmed with gathering tears—the tears that he knew would fall when he was gone—her graceful head drooping towards him, and how he now, as then, longed to whisper in her little white ear the words he scarcely knew how to utter, and which were withheld through very shame of himself.
Earlshaugh he deemed, of course, now gone from his family for ever; well, it was only one more case of the now daily sinking out of sight, the decay or destruction of good old Scottish families, while mushrooms came up to take their place in the land, though seldom in history.