The Green Flag | Page 3

glowed on either side of the square, but elsewhere the fringe
of fighting-men was of the dull yellow khaki tint which hardly shows
against the desert sand. Inside their array was a dense mass of camels
and mules bearing stores and ambulance needs. Outside a twinkling
clump of cavalry was drawn up on each flank, and in front a thin,
scattered line of mounted infantry was already slowly advancing over
the bush-strewn plain, halting on every eminence, and peering warily
round as men might who have to pick their steps among the bones of
those who have preceded them.
The three chieftains still lingered upon the knoll, looking down with
hungry eyes and compressed lips at the dark steel-tipped patch. "They
are slower to start than the men of Egypt," the Sheik of the
Hadendowas growled in his beard.
"Slower also to go back, perchance, my brother," murmured the
dervish.
"And yet they are not many--3,000 at the most."
"And we 10,000, with the Prophet's grip upon our spear-hafts and his
words upon our banner. See to their chieftain, how he rides upon the
right and looks up at us with the glass that sees from afar! It may be
that he sees this also." The Arab shook his sword at the small clump of
horsemen who had spurred out from the square.
"Lo! he beckons," cried the dervish; "and see those others at the corner,

how they bend and heave. Ha! by the Prophet, I had thought it." As he
spoke, a little woolly puff of smoke spurted up at the corner of the
square, and a 7 lb. shell burst with a hard metallic smack just over their
heads. The splinters knocked chips from the red rocks around them.
"Bismillah!" cried the Hadendowa; "if the gun can carry thus far, then
ours can answer to it. Ride to the left, Moussa, and tell Ben Ali to cut
the skin from the Egyptians if they cannot hit yonder mark. And you,
Hamid, to the right, and see that 3,000 men lie close in the wady that
we have chosen. Let the others beat the drum and show the banner of
the Prophet, for by the black stone their spears will have drunk deep ere
they look upon the stars again."
A long, straggling, boulder-strewn plateau lay on the summit of the red
hills, sloping very precipitously to the plain, save at one point, where a
winding gully curved downwards, its mouth choked with sand-mounds
and olive-hued scrub. Along the edge of this position lay the Arab
host--a motley crew of shock-headed desert clansmen, fierce predatory
slave dealers of the interior, and wild dervishes from the Upper Nile, all
blent together by their common fearlessness and fanaticism. Two races
were there, as wide as the poles apart--the thin-lipped, straight-haired
Arab and the thick-lipped, curly negro--yet the faith of Islam had bound
them closer than a blood tie. Squatting among the rocks, or lying
thickly in the shadow, they peered out at the slow-moving square
beneath them, while women with water-skins and bags of dhoora
fluttered from group to group, calling out to each other those fighting
texts from the Koran which in the hour of battle are maddening as wine
to the true believer. A score of banners waved over the ragged, valiant
crew, and among them, upon desert horses and white Bishareen camels,
were the Emirs and Sheiks who were to lead them against the infidels.
As the Sheik Kadra sprang into his saddle and drew his sword there
was a wild whoop and a clatter of waving spears, while the one-ended
war-drums burst into a dull crash like a wave upon shingle. For a
moment 10,000 men were up on the rocks with brandished arms and
leaping figures; the next they were under cover again, waiting sternly
and silently for their chieftain's orders. The square was less than half a

mile from the ridge now, and shell after shell from the 7 lb. guns were
pitching over it. A deep roar on the right, and then a second one
showed that the Egyptian Krupps were in action. Sheik Kadra's hawk
eyes saw that the shells burst far beyond the mark, and he spurred his
horse along to where a knot of mounted chiefs were gathered round the
two guns, which were served by their captured crews.
"How is this, Ben Ali?" he cried. "It was not thus that the dogs fired
when it was their own brothers in faith at whom they aimed!"
A chieftain reined his horse back, and thrust a blood-smeared sword
into its sheath. Beside him two Egyptian artillerymen with their throats
cut were sobbing out their lives upon the ground. "Who lays the gun
this time?" asked the fierce chief, glaring at the frightened gunners."
Here,