The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-10-12


and DE MontmOrency was left alone with
his revolver and 5000 screaming fiends
Capt. Kenna and Corpl. Swarbrick rode
out, caught his horse, and brought it back;
the three answered the fire of the 5000 at
fifty yards, and got quietly back to their
own line untouched.
Forbearing a second charge the Lancers
dismoNnted and opened fire; the carbines
at short range took an opulent vengeance
for the lost. Back, back, back they drove
them, till they came into the fire of the
Thirty-second Battery. Then shrapnel
flew shrieking over them; the 5000 fell
all ways and died
Two minutes silence. Then once more
the howIing storm rushed down upon us;
once more crashed forth the answering
tempest. This time it burst upon Macdon-
aid alone-from the northwestward upon
his right flank, spreading and gathering to
his right rear. For all their sudden swift
ness of movement the dervishes through
out this day never lost their forma ton;
their lines drove on as rigidly as ours,
regiment alongside regiment in Hines at
six and eight and a dozen ranks, till you
might have fancied the Macedonian pha-
lanX was alive again. Left and front and
right and rear the masses ate up the de-
sert-120OO unbroken fast and fearless war
riors leaping around 5000.
Now began the fercest fight of that fierce
day. The Khalifa brought up his own black
banner again; his stanchest die-hards
drove it into the earth and locked their
ranks about it. The green flag danced en-
couragement to the Authenticated bat
talions of Wad Helu and the Sheikh-ed-
Din. 1t was victory or paradise now.
For us 1t was victory or shredded flesh
and bones, unburied, cracking under the
red slippers of Baggara victors. 1t was the
very cruX and crisis of the fight, and the
cockpit of the fight was S1acdonalds The
British might avenge his brigade; 1t was
his to keep il and to kill off the attack. To
meet it he turned his front through com
plete half circle, facing successfully south,
west and north. Every tactician in the
army was denrious in his praise; the ig
norant correspondent was content to watch
the man and his blacks. "Cool as on pa
rade" Is an old phrase; Macdonald Bey
was very much cooler. Beneath the strong
square-hewn face you could tell that the
brain was working as If packed in Ice. He
sat solid on his horse, and bent his black
brows toward the green flag and the Rem
ingtons Then he turned to a galloper with
an order, and captered easily up to bat
TALON commander. Magically the rifles
hushed, the singing powder smoke wisped
away, and the battalions were rapidly
threading back and forward, round and
round, in and out, as If it were figure OF
a dance. In two minutes the brigade was
together again in a new place. The heid
in front was Fastening toward us IN a
whitey-brown cloud of dervishes. An or
der. Macdonald's jaws gripped and harden
ed as the flame spurted out again, and the
Whitley brown cloud quivered and stood
stiu. He saw everything; knew what to
do: knew how to do it; did 1t. AT the hre
he was ever brooding waterbury, BEHIND
his firing line; at the cease fire ne was IN
stantly in front of it, all saw him, and
knew that they were being nursed to
triumph.
His blacks of the Ninth, Tenth and
Eleventh. the historic fighting regiments
of the Egyptian army, were worthy or
their chief The Second Egyptian bril-
gaded with them and fighting in the line,
were worthy of their comrades, and OF
their own reputation as the best-disciplin-
ed battalion in the world. A few had
feared that the blacks would be too for
ward the yellows too backward except
that the blacks, as always, looked hap
pier. there was no difference at all be-
tween them. The Egyptians sprang TO
the advance at the bugle; the Soudanese
ceased to fire in an instant silence at the
hugIe They were losing men, too, for,
though eyes were clamped on the dervtsn
charges, the dervish fire was brisk. Man
after man dropped out behind the firing
line Here was a white officer with a
red-lathered charger; there a black
stretched straight, bareheaded in the sun,
q,
his liver; two yards away a dead driver
bv dead battery mule, his whip stun
elued in hand The table of loss had
topped 1OO-l5O-neared 200. Still they
stood fired advanced, fired, changed
front, fred-fring. firing always, dear IN
the din. blind in the smarting smoke, hot,
dry. bleeding, bloodthirsty, enduring the
devilish fight to the end.
And the dervishes? The honor of the
fight must still go with the men who
died our men were perfect, but the der
wishes were suped-beyond perfection. II
was their largest, best anb braVest army
that ever fought against us for Mahdism,
and it died worthily of the huge empire
that Mahdism won and kept so long. Their
rifemen, mangled by every kind of death
and torment that man can devise, chung
round the black flag and the green, empty
ing their poor, rotten, homemade cart
ridges dauntlessly.
Their spearmen charged death at every
minute hopelessly. Their horsemen led
each attack, riding into the bullets till
nothing was left but three horses trot-
ting up to our line, heads down. saying.
"For goodness sake, let us in out of
this" Not one rush, or two, or ten-but
rush on flush, company on company, never
stoppjng, though all their view that was
not mistaken enemy was the bodies or
he men who had rushed before them. A
dusky line got up ana Storuleu loIWdiu5 IL
rent broke up, all apart, and disappeared.
BEFORE the smoke had cleared, another
line was bending and storming forward in
the same track
1t was over. The avenging squadrons
of the Egyptian cavalry swept over the
field. The Khalifa and the Sheikh-ed-Dn
had galloped back to Omdurman. Ali
Wad HeIu was borne away on an an
gareb with bullet through his thigh bone
Yakub lay dead under his brothers ban
Uer From the green army there now came
only death-enamored desperadoes, stroll /
ing one by one toward the rifles, paus-
ing to shake a spear, turning aside TO
recognize a corpse, then caught by a sud
den let of fury, bounding forward. check
ing. sinking Imply to the ground. Now
under the black flag in a ring of bodies
stood only three men facing the 5000 of
fhe Third Brigade They folded their
arms about the staff and gazed steadily
forward. Two fell. The last dervish |
stood up and filed his chest he shouted |
The name of his god and hurled his spear.
Then he stood quite still, waiting. It
e,,qt. Va CAV or he