“What news have you brought me, and how fare the faithful?” inquired Abdullahi. “Master,” replied Osman, “I led them to Paradise.” Now, Osman had been doing this at every battle for years, and the Khaleefa’s patience was exhausted; he wanted victories, and not pilgrimages of his best troops to the next world. “Then why did you not go with them?” retorted Abdullahi. “God,” replied Osman, “had not ordained it so; He must have more work for me to do; when that work is finished, He will call me.” It was well known to the Khaleefa, and every one else in the Soudan, that Osman had an excellent eye for a |249| field of battle, and knew an hour before any one else did, when to make a bolt for it on a losing day. Osman’s appearance was quite sufficient to let people understand that all the tales of victory on the side of the dervishes were false, and it was useless for the Khaleefa to try any longer to conceal the truth, but some explanation had to be given for the terrible rout of his army. It was all the doing of an outraged Deity. Mahmoud had disobeyed the orders transmitted through Abdullahi by the Prophet, and this was the result! As other stragglers came in, extraordinary tales were told of enormous steamers with enormous guns which fired “devils” and “lightning”; this description probably referred to the rockets, which, I gathered, had ricochetted all over Mahmoud’s camp, playing terrible havoc. On the fall of Dongola, a Mograbin (from Tunis, or Algiers), named Nowraani, had offered his services to Yacoub, as a maker of torpedoes, and with these he said he could blow up every boat on the Nile. His offer at the time was refused, as the Khaleefa said that it was his intention to capture all these boats for himself; he did not wish them to be destroyed. But the tales which came in about them after the Atbara fight, showed that something must be done to secure them. Abdallah and Hassanein undertook to make a “boom” of chains across the Sabalooka (Shabluka) pass, and for this purpose almost every scrap of chain in Omdurman was collected. Their plan, as described to me, was as follows: the chains were to be laid across the stream, their ends made fast to posts on the opposite |250| banks of the Nile. To prevent them from sinking to the bed of the stream, a series of large wooden buoys had been made, and these were to be fixed at intervals along the boom. It had been calculated that the buoys would, with the weight of the chains, be sunk just below the surface of the water, and also keep the chains in a series of loops; these loops were intended to entangle the paddles and propellers of the gunboats, and, while so entangled, Mansour’s picked men were to shoot every one on board, and then, releasing the boats, bring them on to Omdurman. That was the arrangement.