Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-05-06
How the H.dendow.s no II.

Soudan Correspondence of the London Telegraph.
How the Hadendowas do 1t nobody but they
themselves can tell, but night after night they
come into the middle of our camp, stab and
mack few soldiers, and go out again scathless.
sometimes they creep in five abreast past our
sentinels; sometimes they come right up to our
tents, half a mile within the line of redoubts
and pickets, and bring cames and horses with
them But, whatever the audacity Of their en-
trance, the impunity of their departure is the
alarm, signals flash, rifles are let off, gunboat
iltes overhead into black space, but next morn
ing there are only our own mutilated and dead
III evidence of the asSasSins presence. The
,dadendowas have left none behind them, or
nad none to leave. 1t is horrible in the highest
and depressing beyond language to find our
neadquarters staff apparently SO unteachable
Dy experience.
Crawling along on all fours, they traverse the
space between them and their victims with all
the patient caution of wild beasts stalking prey:
the sea breeze the doorway is open, and the
heXt instant the murderer is standing by the
sleeping soldiers side. He feels hand passing
lips. 1t Is strangled in his throat by groan of
pain, and before the gallant fellow can even
warn warn his comrades the fierce spear is driven
home through his body, the heavy two-handled
sword has fallen across him; But the tent is
this way and that, the murderers stab and hack
with the fury of fiends, and then as the camp
starts to its feet in clamor they are off, Not a
trace OF blood to tell of retribution.
g theK are goneMback into the Sillainops
and next WE can o imagine G s them sitting to-
refresh shemselves outside our line of re-
doubts-to listen gleefully. to the storm they
have raised-the bugles telling the old tale. of
murder completed and the murderers gone, the
aimless voley of rifles, the din OF voices, the
roaring for an impossible vengeance They hear
the tempest of the camps alarm swell up and
dwindle away and then quietly get up and pass
70 phnr f1,nir f,,in do
graduate and to rejoice-to rnb their spear
heads against the red tips OF the assassin's
still st wet on their blades. And in our campo
The hospital stretchers there are carrying away
the mangled, mutilated bodies of our men, their
comrades standing to their arms savage with
useless rage as they look at the lantern-lit
group of surgeons and wounded. 1t is a horri-
bic episode, yet of nightly occurrence.
Murders! MURDER heard the word ring out
last night from the ordnance camp and then
came cry-the bitter cry of man suddenly
then another and another. Then confusion
OF muffied sounds. Then silence. l was only
400 yards away. The night had been SO still
that the water tapping on the quay was plainly
audible where lay. Presently came this brief
uproar of alarm, subsiding as suddenly it
had arisen. Signals were flashing overhead. A
party of Hadendowas had either crept straight
across the camp, or passing along the rear, had
traversed it's complete length, crossing twice
Dolphin, had reached, without being observed,
the farthest batch of tents from their starting
point the nearest to the town. Behind them,
only q hundred yards off. was Quarantine
island. with its camp; nearer still lay ship
ping, with the gunboats close in shore, com
manding one line OF their retreat, the whole of
the British troops intercepting the other. Be-
hind them was the sea; on their left the town,
yet, such is the confidence inspired by nightly
success and impunity, that the ;issassins did not
hesitate to creep even into such desperate po-
Sition as this. And their work was desperate
| and terribly complete. OF the whole of the oc-
cupants of the tents-24 in all-only two es-
capped their spears and swords, while the muir
went back rifles were wildly emptied after them
and the Carysfort fired voileys into the dark.
But there was no trace of blood. Inside the tents
the sight was dreadful--blood everywhere, and
men lying about i'll all directions wounded and
prOanjno