But brilliant as was the rush of the Staffordshire, climbing with their hands and feet, it was almost surpassed by the advance of the Highlanders, for in the _élan_ with which they went on every man seemed as if inspired by the advice of General Brackenbury when he said: 'Take your heart and throw it among the enemy, as Douglas did that of King Robert Bruce, and follow it with set teeth determined to win!' When General Earle ordered the left half-battalion of the Highlanders to advance by successive rushes, they went forward with a ringing cheer and with pipers playing 'The Campbells are coming,' and in another moment the scarlet coats and green kilts, led by Wauchop of Niddry, had crowned the ridge, rolling the soldiers of the Mahdi down the rocks before their bayonets in literal piles that never rose again, and then it was that Colonel Coveny, one of their most popular officers, fell. Roland felt proud of his regiment, the old South Staffordshire, but when he saw the tartans fluttering on the crest, and heard the pipes set up their pæan of victory, all his heart went forth to the Highlanders, who, ere these successive rushes were carried out, had been attacked by a most resolute band of the enemy, armed with long spears and trenchant swords, led by a standard-bearer clad in a long Darfour shirt of mail. The latter, the Sheikh Moussa Abu Hagil, was shot, and as his body went rolling down, the holy standard was seized in succession by three men of resolute valour, who all perished successively in the same manner. Some of this band now rushed away towards the Nile to escape the storm of Highland bullets, but were there met by a company of the Staffordshire and shot down to a man. Within the koppie stormed by the Highlanders was a stone hut full of Arabs, who, though surrounded by victorious troops, defiantly refused to surrender. General Earle, a veteran Crimean officer of the old 49th, or Hertfordshire, now rashly approached it, though warned by a sergeant of the Black Watch to beware, and was immediately shot dead. An entrance was found to be impossible, so securely was the door barricaded. Then the edifice was set on fire by the infuriated Highlanders, breached by powder, and all the Arabs within it were shot down or burned alive. The enemy now fled on all hands, while the chivalrous Buller, with a squadron of the 19th Hussars, captured the camp three miles in rear of their position, and Brackenbury, as senior officer, assumed the command. Our casualties were eighty-seven of all ranks killed and wounded; those of the enemy it was impossible to estimate, as only seventeen were taken alive, but their dead covered all the position, and an unknown number perished in the Nile. Untouched, after that terrible conflict of five consecutive hours, Roland Lindsay and Jack Elliot grasped each other's hands in warmth and gratitude when they sheathed their swords and felt that their ghastly work was done.