The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-10-16

bOUTn-DODm-&
melancholy note. half below. half wall, II
was the great ombeya. the war horn The
Khallfa was inside, and he was ralIying the
muiazemin OF his bodyguard TO tight their
last fight in. their last stronghold.
Less than 800 men were standing, sur
rounded by ten times their number. within
ten feet Of this gigantic wall. But for the
moment we were safe enough. The Khalif1.
demenfed in all he did through these last
days Of his perdition. had made no BAN
quettc inside his rampant, and II II was nard
10 scale IL was impossible to defend. The
pinch would come when we went inside.
One column moved off along the street;
another the Thirteenth Sudanese, with four
guns Of the battery, away TO the lett under
the wall toward the Nile. The road
was what you already felt TO be typical OF
Aahdism--pools of rank stagnation, hills
and chasms Of rubbie. The guns fell behind
TO cut their river. bit; the infantry went went
river. Here were the forts and the loop
holed walls. and here, steaming serenely
s r.i Iss sunbosts CRACK. Three crisp
Maxim rounds. the place was tenanteo yet.
At the corner we come on a breach-nve
hundred cubic feet or so of flssure--torn Dy
a lyddite shell. Over the rubble we scram-
bic. then through stout, douDie-lealeo
gate. pulses leaping we are INSIDE, .d 6u. os ~
between another high stone wall on our
right and the river forts on our lett we
saw the choked embrasures and manned
effn ar two and walls so clowniShly loop
holed that a man could only get one oblique
shot at a gunboat and then wait TIL the
saw worse things-horrors such as 90 not
sicken in the mass on the Dattienelo.a
scarlet man sitting with his chin on MS
knees hit by shell, clothed from head to
foot in his own bood-a woman, young ana
beautifully formed, stark naked, rolling
from side to side. moaning. As yet we saw
not one fighting man, and still we could
feel that the place was alive. We puSneu
on between wells, we knew not whitner.
through expectant emptiness. through puis-
ing silence.
THROUGH THE LABYRINTH.
Round a corner we came suddenly on
bundle of dirty patched cloth and dirty,
lean. black limbs of typical Dervish. He
was alive and unarmed and threw up his
hands: he was taken for a guide. Next at
our feet cutting the road, we found a broad
khor flowing in from the Nile, washing up
above the base of the wall. Four Dervishes
popped out seemingly from dead walls
beyond. They came towards us and prob
ably wished to surrender, but the blacks
fired as they dived into their dead walls
again The guide said the water was not
deep, and a crowd of men and women sud
denly shooting up from the rear bore him
out by fording IT. Most of these now recon
ciled foes had baskets to take away their
We FLASHED through the water-and here
at last. in the face of the high wall on our
right, was great wooden gate. SIX blacks
stood by with the bayonet, while another
beat it open with his rife butt We stepped
inside and gasped with wonder and olsap-
pointment For the inside of the khalifa
own Enclosure was even more squaIo, ~
even more wonderful teeming beehive, tnan
the outer town itself Like al tyTants. n, ne
was constantly increasing his body-guard,
till the fortified inclosure was purs Ing
with them. From the height or sadie
you could see that this was only part OF
the citadel an Enclosure within an inclosure
Past little guardhOuse at the gate mar.
row path ran up the center of 1t; all the rest
was chaos of piggish dwelllng noles. LII tt
round straw tukls. mats propped up q FOOT
from earth with crooked sticks. uoine-
topped mud kennels that man could Just
crawl into, exaggerated birds nests raining
to pieces Of stick and straw-lucky was the
man Of the Khalifa's guard who could mouse
himself and his family in mud cabin the
size of an omnibus. On every side. OF every
type, they jumbled and jostled and crushed;
and they sweated and skunk with people.
For one or two old men in new gibbas came
out. and one or two young men naked ana
wounded. When we offered them no harm
the Kha1ifa's body-guard broke cover one
second the place might have been an un-
coJth cemetery; the next it was a gibberlng
monkey house. From naked novels, presto!
1t turned to naked bodies. Climbing,
squeezing, burrowing. they came out IKE
vermin from a burning coat.
TRAITORS TO THEIR MASTER.
They were just as skinny and shabby as
any other Dervishes; as the Omdurman
Guards they were failure They were all
very friendly; the men anxious to tell what
they knew of the Khalifas movements
which was nothing-the women overjoyed
to fetch drinks of water. But when they
were told TO bring out their arms and am
munition they became a bit sticky as SOL
diers say. They looked like refusing, and
snapshot round a corner which killed
black soldier began to look nasty. There
must have been thousands of them all
about US. all under cover, all knowing every
twist and turn of their warren. But con-
fident front imposed on them, as it will on
all savages. A raised voice. hand on the
shoulder-and they were slipping away to
their dens and slouching back with Reming-
tons and bandoliers. The first came very,
very slowly; as the pile grew they came
changed in five minutes to a trot; they
smiled all over. and informed zealously
against anybody who hung back. Why not?
Three masterless hours will hardly wipe out
the rest of lifetime of slavery.
Maxwell Bey left a guard over the arms,
and went back, 1t was not in this compart-
ment that we should find the Khalifa~ We
went on through the walled street along
the river front. the gunboats were still
Maximtng, now and again, a cable or two
ahead SO on, until We came to the south
ern river corner of the HOLLAND here was
a winding ascending path between two
wooden gate; 1t must be here. In this in
closure, too, was multitude of dwellings,
but larger and more amply spaced. The
sirdar overlook us now, and the guns; the
gunners had cut their road and leveled the
breach, and tugged the first gate off its
hinges On; we must be coming to It now
We were quite close upon the towering
Ehell-torn skeleton of the Mahdis tomb
The way hroadened to a square. But the
sun had some time struck level into our
eyes; he went down; in ten minutes it
would be dark. Now or neveri Here we
We're opposite the tomb; to our left front
was the Khalifa's own palace We were
there, If only he was. A section of blacks
fled away to the left through the walled
passage that led to the door. Another filed
to the right. behind the tomb, towards his
private iron mosque. We waited. We
waited. And then on left and right, they
reappeared, rather draggingly
Gonel None could know it for certain till
the place had been searched through as well
as the darkness would let ii. Next morning
some of the smaller emirS aVoWed that
they knew it. He had been supposed to be
surrounded, but who could stop every earth
IN such a spinneyi He had bolted out of
one door as we went in at another.
HORRIBLE OMDURMAN.
We filed back. For the present we had
missed the browning capture. But, going
back under the wall. we found a very good
assurance that Abdullahi was no more a
ruler. The street under the wall. now o
breathless stream of men and women, all
carrying baskets-the whole population of
the Khalifas capital racing to pilfer the
Khalifa's grain. There was no doubt about
their good disposition now They salaamed
with enthusiasm, and lu-ed most genuinely