After despatching Hassib, Wad Farag divided his party, sending one to the district between Wadi el Kab and the Nile, and the second, commanded by himself, he led to the desert to intercept us. The Alighat Arab sent out as a scout, who did not return, must have either been captured by Farag, or what is more likely, as he was sent out by Hassan, was an emissary of Hassan’s to Wad Farag or any of the other dervishes to give them the news, as Hassan must have been aware of our position and the proximity of the dervishes. The tracks we had picked up on the road, when the embers of the caravan’s fires were found still hot, were the remains of the fires of Hassib’s men, who had kept within touch of us the whole time, only losing touch on the day following the disappearance of the Alighats. On reaching the broken ground leading to El Kab, my guide Amin and the two others had been allowed to pass unchallenged intentionally, as the dervish plan was to form themselves into three parties, which were to rush us from three sides at the same moment. It was in direct disobedience of orders that the first shots were fired at us, but it was probably done by some one to gain the promised reward for sighting us, and it ended, as already related, in a general fusilade. The |61| camels loaded with filled water-skins were left behind purposely, but their being left was a happy thought at the moment of Farag’s men. When they retired, it was only to join the other section which was to have rushed us from the left; the section to rush us in the rear being a little further out in the desert than the plan shows. Our leader Ismail I never saw or heard of again; he may have succeeded in escaping altogether, only to be killed when the virtual extermination of the tribe took place and Sheikh Saleh, standing on his sheepskin, fell fighting to the last. This account of the capture of the caravan, and the explanations given, though not agreeing in essentials with the accounts given officially, may be accepted as being as nearly correct in every detail as it is possible for memory to give them, and the occasion was one of those in life where even twelve years’ sufferings are not sufficient to obliterate the incidents from the mind. I feel some little confidence in offering to the world my version of the circumstances attending my departure from Wadi Halfa for Kordofan, the date upon which I really did leave Egypt—as unfortunate a date for me as it evidently has been to some of my biographers,—and the actual circumstances attending my capture, as I happened to be present on the various occasions spoken of, and I do not think it will be asking too much if I request that the same amount of credence be given to my own story as has been given to that of others referred to in my introduction, and in the extracts which head the present chapter. |62|