The officer selected for the command of the British brigade was a man of high character and ability.  General Gatacre had already led a brigade in the Chitral expedition, and, serving under Sir Robert Low and Sir Bindon Blood had gained so good a reputation that after the storming of the Malakand Pass and the subsequent action in the plain of Khar it was thought desirable to transpose his brigade with that of General Kinloch, and send Gatacre forward to Chitral.  From the mountains of the North-West Frontier the general was ordered to Bombay, and in a stubborn struggle with the bubonic plague, which was then at its height, he turned his attention from camps of war to camps of segregation.  He left India, leaving behind him golden opinions, just before the outbreak of the great Frontier rising, and was appointed to a brigade at Aldershot.  Thence we now find him hurried to the Soudan—­a spare, middle-sized man, of great physical strength and energy, of marked capacity and unquestioned courage, but disturbed by a restless irritation, to which even the most inordinate activity afforded little relief, and which often left him the exhausted victim of his own vitality.

By the end of January a powerful force lay encamped along the river from Abu Hamed to the Atbara.  Meanwhile the Dervishes made no forward movement.  Their army was collected at Kerreri; supplies were plentiful; all preparations had been made.  Yet they tarried.  The burning question of the command had arisen.  A dispute that was never settled ensued.  When the whole army was regularly assembled, the Khalifa announced publicly that he would lead the faithful in person; but at the same time he arranged privately that many Emirs and notables should beg him not to expose his sacred person.  After proper solicitation, therefore, he yielded to their appeals.  Then he looked round for a subordinate.  The Khalifa Ali-Wad-Helu presented himself.  In the Soudan every advantage and honour accrues to the possessor of an army, and the rival chief saw a chance of regaining his lost power.  This consideration was not, however, lost upon Abdullah.  He accepted the offer with apparent delight, but he professed himself unable to spare any rifles for the army which Ali-Wad-Helu aspired to lead.  ‘Alas!’ he cried, ’there are none.  But that will make no difference to so famous a warrior.’  Ali-Wad-Helu, however, considered that it would make a great deal of difference, and declined the command.  Osman Sheikh-ed-Din offered to lead the army, if he might arm the riverain tribes and use them as auxiliaries to swell his force.  This roused the disapproval of Yakub.  Such a policy, he declared, was fatal.  The riverain tribes were traitors—­ dogs—­worthy only of being destroyed; and he enlarged upon the more refined methods by which his policy might be carried out.  The squabble continued, until at last the Khalifa, despairing of any agreement, decided merely to reinforce Mahmud, and accordingly ordered the Emir Yunes to march to Metemma with about 5,000 men.  But it was then discovered that Mahmud hated Yunes, and would have none of him.  At this the Khalifa broke up his camp, and the Dervish army marched back for a second time, in vexation and disgust, to the city.