If the latter people were right, the authorities acted wisely; if the former had reason on their side, they acted foolishly. But as to which is which, it would be very rash for any one who does not know all the ins and outs, and has not the evidence which influenced those who had to decide, before him, to give an opinion. Anyhow, the expedition returned to Suakim, and the majority of the troops sailed away for different places. And Osman Digna had time to gather fresh fanatics together, and the Soudanese recovered from the shock to their superstition and conviction of invincibility which the hecatombs of slaughter had given them, and were soon ready to fight again. And Tom Strachan was not so very badly hurt, but was soon able to be taken home to England to be nursed, and rejoined his regiment in six months. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. AGAINST THE STREAM. A swift broad river, with the water broken into foaming wavelets by rocks which were everywhere showing their vicious heads above the surface; a string of nuggars, or half-decked boats, fifteen feet broad, forty-five feet long, flat-bottomed, each with a thick rope attached to the bows, and a string of men on the bank towing it under a hot sun. Perhaps you have yourself towed a skiff on the Thames, when the current was so strong that the progress made with the oars was unsatisfactory. Well, if you have, you _don't_ know one bit what this was like. In the first place, the Thames, even by Monkey Island, is still water compared to the Nile between Surras and Dal, a sixty-mile stretch. Then your skiff did not carry six tons of beef, bacon, biscuit, and other stores. It may also be safely asserted that the towing-path you walked on was not composed of sharp pointed rocks. Those were the conditions under which certain picked British soldiers, one of whom was an old friend of ours, lost sight of for a considerable time, were dragging their nuggar up a series of cataracts. Towing always looks to me an absurd business, much as if a man were to carry a horse about, and call it going for a ride. "Are you growling or singing, Tarrant?" asked Kavanagh of the man behind him on the string. "Not singing, you may take your davy," growled the man addressed. "I fancied not, though there is a certain likeness in your way of doing both which made me ask. I suppose you are growling then--what about?" "What about, indeed!" grunted Tarrant. "D'ye suppose I 'listed as a soldier or a barge horse?" "Don't know; never saw your attestation papers." "Why, it was as a soldier then. I should have thought twice if I had known I was to be put to this sort of work." "Really! Why, when we were rowing, you did not like that, and said you would sooner be doing any work on your legs." "But I didn't mean this; why, I have cut two pairs of boots to pieces against these here sharp rocks since we began it."