“No. The Mahdi has gone to Khartoum,” returned the interpreter, who then walked away as if he objected to be further questioned.
The hopes which had been recently raised in the breasts of the captives to a rather high pitch were, however, somewhat reduced when they found that their supposed friend Mohammed treated them with cool indifference, did not even recognise them, and the disappointment was deepened still more when all of them, except Miles, were loaded with heavy burdens, and made to march among the baggage-animals as if they were mere beasts of burden. The savage warriors also treated them with great rudeness and contempt.
Miles soon found that he was destined to fill his old post of runner in front of Mohammed, his new master. This seemed to him unaccountable, for runners, he understood, were required only in towns and cities, not on a march. But the hardships attendant on the post, and the indignities to which he was subjected, at last convinced him that the Mahdi must have set the mind of his kinsman against him, and that he was now undergoing extra punishment as well as unique degradation.
The force that took the field on this occasion was a very considerable one—with what precise object in view was of course unknown to all except its chiefs, but the fact that it marched towards the frontiers of Egypt left no doubt in the mind of any one. It was a wild barbaric host, badly armed and worse drilled, but fired with a hatred of all Europeans and a burning sense of wrong.
“What think ye now, Miles?” asked Armstrong, as the captives sat grouped together in the midst of the host on the first night of their camping out in the desert.
“I think that everything seems to be going wrong,” answered Miles, in a desponding tone. “At first I thought that Mohammed was our friend, but he has treated me so badly that I can think so no longer.”
“Don’t you think he may be doing that to blind his followers as to his friendship?” said Moses; “for myself, I can’t help thinkin’ he must be grateful for what you did, Miles.”
“I only wish you had not touched my rifle that day,” said Rattling Bill, fiercely—being fatigued and out of temper—“for the blackguard would have bin in ‘Kingdom come’ by this time. There’s no gratitude in an Arab. I have no hope at all now.”
“My hope is in God,” said Stevenson.
“Well, mate, common-sense tells me that that should be our best ground of hope,” observed Molloy; “but common experience tells me that the Almighty often lets His own people come to grief.”