There had been nothing in the day, either, to stimulate the spirit of insurrection. It had been a lazy day, growing hot in the afternoon, so that the white city of domes and minarets, as far up as the Mokattam Hills and the self-conscious Citadel, had seemed to palpitate in a glistening haze, while the steely ribbon of the Nile that ran between was reddening in the rays of the sunset. General Graves, an elderly man with martial bearing, commanding the army in Egypt, had taken his place as Umpire in the Judge’s box in front of the pavilion; four squadrons of British and Egyptian cavalry, a force of infantry, and a grunting and ruckling camel corps had marched and pranced and bumped out of a paddock to the left, and then young Colonel Gordon Lord, Assistant Adjutant-General, who was to play the part of Commandant in the sham fight, had come trotting into the field. Down to that moment there had been nothing but gaiety and the spirit of fun among the spectators, who with ripples of merry laughter had whispered "Littleton’s," "Wauchope’s," "Macdonald’s," and "Maxwell’s," as the white-faced and yellow-faced squadrons had taken their places. Then the General had rung the big bell that was to be the signal for the beginning of the battle, a bugle had been sounded, and the people had pretended to shiver as they smiled. But all at once the atmosphere had changed. From somewhere on the right had come the _tum, tum, tum_ of the war drums of the enemy, followed by the _boom, boom, boom_ of their war-horns, a melancholy note, half bellow and half wail. Then everybody in the pavilion had stood up, everybody’s glass had been out, and a moment afterwards a line of strange white things had been seen fluttering in the far distance. Were they banners? No! They were men, they were the dervishes, and they were coming down in a deep white line, like sheeted ghosts in battle array. "They’re here!" said the spectators in a hushed whisper, and from that moment onward to the end there had been no more laughter either in the pavilion or in the dense line around the field. The dervishes had come galloping on, a huge disorderly horde in flying white garments, some of them black as ink, some brown as bronze, brandishing their glistening spears, their swords, and their flintlocks, beating their war-drams, blowing their war-horns, and shouting in high-pitched, rasping, raucous voices their war-cry and their prayer, "Allah! Allah! Allah!" On and on they had come, like champing surf rolling in on a reef-bound coast; on and on, faster and faster, louder and louder; on and on until they had all but hurled themselves into the British lines, and then—_crash!_ a sheet of blinding flashes, a roll of stifling smoke, and, when the air cleared, a long empty space in the front line of the dervishes, and the ground strewn as with the drapery of two hundred dead men.