It had been a swift action, but it would be wrong either to underrate the discipline and bravery of the Egyptian troops or to imagine that it was an easy victory. As General Hamley has written in the _Nineteenth Century_: “The Scottish people may be satisfied with the bearing of those who represented them in the land of the Pharaohs. No doubt any very good troops, feeling that they were willing, would have accomplished the final advance; but what appear to me exceptional are: First, the order and discipline which marked that march by night through the desert; and, secondly, the readiness with which the men sprang forward to storm the works. The influence of the march had been altogether of a depressing kind—the dead silence, the deep gloom, the funereal pace, the unknown obstacles, and enemy. They did not know what was in front, but neither did they stop to consider. There was not the slightest sign that the enemy was surprised—none of the clamour, shouts, or random firing which would have attended a sudden call to arms. Even very good troops at the end of that march might have paused when suddenly greeted by that burst of fire, and none but exceptionally good ones could have accomplished the feats I have mentioned.” It is worth while repeating these words of General Hamley’s, because in a later chapter we shall have to deal with that other memorable night march at Magersfontein. However melancholy the story, it serves to illustrate that when a night attack does not prove a surprise it becomes nothing less than a calamity. CHAPTER XXII FROM EL-TEB TO OMDURMAN (1884-1898) Vain is the dream! However Hope may rave, He perished with the folk he could not save. And though none surely told us he is dead, And though perchance another in his stead, Another, not less brave, when all was done, Had fled unto the southward and the sun, Had urged a way by force, or won by guile To streams remotest of the secret Nile, Had raised an army of the Desert men, And, waiting for his hour, had turned again And fallen on that False Prophet, yet we know Gordon is dead, and these things are not so! Nay, not for England’s cause, nor to restore Her trampled flag—for he loved Honour more— Nay, not for Life, Revenge, or Victory, Would he have fled, whose hour had dawned to die. _The White Pasha_, ANDREW LANG.