IN the early stages of the Anglo-Egyptian advance up the Nile in 1896, several thousand soldiers of all colors, with camels, horses, mules, guns, wagons, gunboats in sections, and the em! of an unfinished railroad, were waiting at Wady Halfa for the Nile to rise sufficiently to permit the navigation of the Second Cataract. Meanwhile, detached bodies of the cavalry and camel-corps were continually scouring the surrounding desert for marauding parties of the enemy.

      A troop of two hundred men, under Captain Somerville, one day sighted a strong force of dervishes about five miles from Amka, and gave chase — and a long chase it proved. As they advanced farther into the desert, little knots of Arabs were continually springing up from nowhere, as it seemed, and joining the enemy.

      Captain Somerville and his two hundred charged, with shouts and a brisk fire of revolvers and carbines, and were met in the most provoking manner possible. The dervishes did not meet the shock, but scattered, and as the troopers rode in, the dervishes closed round and engulfed the little force. In half a minute the whole scene went out in a cloud of dust and smoke, through which vaguely appeared black faces and arms, flashing eyes, squealing, bobbing camel-heads, with the mingled reek of gunpowder, ill-smelling hot leather and camel's-hair dominating the whole.

      There was sharp, close fighting as the British force strove to cut its way through, which it finally succeeded in doing, and made for a small hillock dotted with rough black boulders. Every soldier dismounted, dropped behind one of these and opened a hot fire that checked pursuit. To Captain Somerville, at five o'clock in the afternoon, the situation did not seem comforting. The men had little water in their flasks; their cartridges were few. They could not hope for aid from Wady Halfa, ten miles away, unless word could be sent through.

      When the captain called for a messenger, every one volunteered to undertake the hazardous service. Only three were selected — an English trooper of the Staffordshire Regiment, an Egyptian subaltern, and Achmet Ben Houssain, a young member of the friendly Arab scouts.

      Achmet was a youngster of about seventeen, proud in the possession of a dromedary, a Martini and a belt of cartridges. He had joined the force with his father and most of his tribe, as free scouts. The three were to leave the camp separately, as soon as it became dark.

      When the swift darkness of old Egypt came on, the English trooper shook hands with his comrades, tightened his belt and crept off down into the gloom on foot. The Egyptian subaltern followed without a word to any one.

      Lastly young Achmet sallied out on his beloved dromedary, and commenced to ride around the hillock in a spiral direction that brought him continually nearer the besiegers' lines. He trusted that his course would produce the impression that he was a chief riding about on a tour of inspection. This artifice seemed to have succeeded when a voice challenged him.

      Achmet was about to reply when he heard a pistol-shot from the other side of the position, then a volley of firing and confusion — then silence. One of the three messengers had been killed.

      Roused by the uproar, the dervishes near Achmet began again to fire at the dusky hillside, so the shrewd boy raised his rifle and fired with the rest, taking care to shoot so that his bullets would go high. Then he continued his round, constantly edging toward the desert.

      Three times they challenged the boy, but he answered so readily that they let him pass. But all had seen him and he was watched closely.

      At last Achmet thought himself clear of the enemy. He settled in his saddle, lashed the camel over the flank with the end of his long rawhide halter, and broke into a gallop, which was injudicious, for the dervishes perceived no reason for this speed. Shouts followed him, then several bullets spit sharply as they struck into the sand ahead.

      In another moment suspicion seemed to have become conviction in the Mahdist mind. Achmet heard the bubbling grunts of camels being pulled up, and then the heavy padding of big feet in the rear. On he galloped.

      And now he heard news of another of the three messengers. As the hill faded out in the da1·kness, there was a second outburst of angry cries and a few shots. Aclunet felt n little thrill us he realized that on him alone depended the rescue of the two hundred. The dervishes in pursuit were firing now, but the night was dark, and they could not shoot accurately by sound of his galloping as he lashed his own beast to a good eight-mile pace. His camel rolled and pitched like a ship at sea, while now and again a bullet whined over his head through the darkness. But the pursuers were not gaining. So Achmet presently let his camel relax into the regular natural trotting pace of the animal, and mile upon mile passed with no sound but the padding of the soft feet on sand, or the occasional splitting crack of a rifle.

      Six miles were covered, and the trained sense of the young Arab told him the Nile was near, when the moon slowly rotted up, bronze and large, over the distant ranges that border the Red Sea. Achmet had been expecting this with dread. As the light spread over the black and corrugated landscape he looked back and saw his pursuers distinctly — five of them. The light served them equally well for a scattering volley, and to Achmet the flying lead whistled near. He turned in his saddle and replied with his Martini. The first shot went wild; the next lamed a camel, and one rider was out of the chase.

      But he must get out of range, and he again urged the dromedary to a gallop. The Mahdists galloped, too, but the gap grew wider. Four hundred yards' interval became six and eight hundred. Already he saw in the distance an irregular line which might have been a row of squat stakes, but which was the fringe of palms along the Nile.

      Straight onward Achmet rode, while the dervishes fired wildly in the hope of stopping him short of a place of safety. Now the feathery palms were clear and black in the moonlight, Two minutes more and he rode beneath them. In front foamed the rushing Nile, surging over the hundred black crags and boulders that block the Second Cataract. He was too far up-stream for the camp.

      He turned to ride northward on the beaten track by the river, when a peculiar, soft "thud" sounded under his saddle, and the camel, hit by a bullet, grunted, tottered, and sank to its knees. The boy sprang clear with an agile bound, and stood for a moment in dismay. He thought of his danger, then of the little beleaguered band upon the hillock in the desert, and all the traditions of his tribe urged him to lay down his life if need be, but to stand fast to the service he had taken.

      The rocky shores of the Nile were strewn with driftwood from the distant equatorial forests. Achmet fired two defiant shots at the oncoming dervishes, dropped his rifle, threw himself upon a half-stranded log, and ran it before him with a rush that sent it shooting far out into the whirling torrent.

      He went clean under water with the impetus, and the water was cool and refreshing. When he rose he was in the grip of the rapids, and the bullets were cutting into the water all around him. The strong current drove him downward, and he was absolutely helpless in its grasp. Down chutes or whirling dizzily in eddies he went, with a grim and gasping determination to cling to his log, and to reach the British post below.

      He escaped crushing as by a miracle; often the log revolved, and he went under in a choking dash of waves and foam. He could not see where he was drifting, much less direct his course beyond fending blindly off the rocks as they loomed up close beside him. Suddenly, as a leaping wave lifted him, he saw the quiet rows of white tents ashore, and a little lower the lights of Wady Halfa.

      His voyage was finished; it only remained to land. An eddy rolled him, log and all, shoreward, and he clutched desperately at projecting crags. They helped him to shallow water, whence he waded ashore.

      Dripping and battered and too dazed to give the countersign, Achmet was found by a sentry, and handed over to the officer of the guard.

      In half an hour the bugles had blown and two regiments had paraded in the open and set off rapidly eastward, singing vociferously an audacious parody:

On the road to Dongolay! On the road to Dongolay!

      And Achmet Ben Houssain, provided with a fresh camel and rifle, went with them as guide.

      The morning wind brought to the rescuers the sound of firing, faint in the distance, and they came to the spot a little after. The garrison sallied as the relieving force attacked; there was a sharp skirmish, hot hand-to-hand fighting. But the dervishes, taken between two fires, fled.

      After the water-bottles had been handed over to the late besieged, Achmet was the hero of the hour. A little bewildered by the boisterous enthusiasm of the troopers, he yet stood with the dignity of a true son of the desert. The few words of grave commendation from his tribesmen impressed him more than all, except the fact that he was offered rifles and camels enough to supply an arsenal or a caravan. Captain Somerville shook hands with him and complimented him, and Achmet felt at peace with himself, and that he had been true to his salt.

FRANK L. POLLOCK.