Abou Saood, having given his orders to Wat-el-Mek, and to the ruffian Ali Hussein, had withdrawn to the station of Fabbo, twenty-two miles west of Fatiko, to which place he had carried all the ivory. He was not fond of fighting, PERSONALLY.
The natives corroborated the information I had received from Rot Jarma's messengers. They declared that not only had women and children been carried off, but that the slave-hunters under Ali Hussein had cut the throats of many of their women before their eyes, and had dashed the brains of the young children upon the rocks in derision of my power; saying, "Now see if the Nuzzerani (Christian) can protect you!"
They declared that Wat-el-Mek really wished to join the government, but that when he got drunk, both Abou Saood and others could induce him to behave badly.
There were several hundred people present at this meeting; and the sheiks wound up in a cool and temperate manner, by advising me "not to judge from what they had told me, but simply to march early on the following morning to Fatiko, and to receive the report direct from my own commandant, Major Abdullah.
"If he contradicts us, you may say that we are liars; then never believe us again."
This was the conclusion of the palaver.
The morning of 2nd August arrived, and we started at 6.20 A.M., and marched fast over a beautiful country of dells, woods, and open park-like lands, until we ascended the hill that rose towards the high plateau at Fatiko.
As we passed the numerous villages we were joined by curious bands of natives, who by degrees swelled our party to nearly a thousand persons. There was no doubt that these people expected to witness a row, as they knew that Abdullah had been threatened. It was therefore highly probable that we might be attacked, as the slave-hunters would imagine that my small force of forty men was the last remnant of my detachment.
No one at Fatiko had an idea of my existence: thus we should arrive as though risen from the dead.
I halted the men on a large flat rock about a mile and a half south of Fatiko. Here they changed their clothes, and dressed in their best scarlet uniforms and white linen trousers.