The moment was critical.  It appeared to the cavalry commander that the Dervishes would actually succeed, and their success must involve the total destruction of the Camel Corps.  That could not, of course, be tolerated.  The whole nine squadrons of cavalry assumed a preparatory formation.  The British officers believed that a terrible charge impended.  They would meet in direct collision the swarms of men who were hurrying down the trough.  The diversion might enable the Camel Corps to escape.  But the ground was bad; the enemy’s force was overwhelming; the Egyptian troopers were prepared to obey—­but that was all.  There was no exalted enthusiasm such as at these moments carries sterner breeds to victory.  Few would return.  Nevertheless, the operation appeared inevitable.  The Camel Corps were already close to the river.  But thousands of Dervishes were running swiftly towards them at right angles to their line of retreat, and it was certain that if the camelry attempted to cross this new front of the enemy they would be annihilated.  Their only hope lay in maintaining themselves by their fire near the river-bank until help could reach them, and, in order to delay and weaken the Dervish attack the cavalry would have to make a desperate charge.

But at the critical moment the gunboat arrived on the scene and began suddenly to blaze and flame from Maxim guns, quick-firing guns, and rifles.  The range was short; the effect tremendous.  The terrible machine, floating gracefully on the waters—­a beautiful white devil—­wreathed itself in smoke.  The river slopes of the Kerreri Hills, crowded with the advancing thousands, sprang up into clouds of dust and splinters of rock.  The charging Dervishes sank down in tangled heaps.  The masses in rear paused, irresolute.  It was too hot even for them.  The approach of another gunboat completed their discomfiture.  The Camel Corps, hurrying along the shore, slipped past the fatal point of interception, and saw safety and the zeriba before them.

Exasperated by their disappointment, the soldiers of Osman Sheikh-ed-Din turned again upon the cavalry, and, forgetting in their anger the mobile nature of their foe, pursued the elusive squadrons three long miles to the north.  The cavalry, intensely relieved by the escape of the Camel Corps, played with their powerful antagonist, as the banderillo teases the bull.  Colonel Broadwood thus succeeded in luring this division of the Dervish army far away from the field of battle, where they were sorely needed.  The rough ground, however, delayed the Horse battery.  They lagged, as the Camel Corps had done, and caused constant anxiety.  At length two of their guns stuck fast in a marshy spot, and as several men and horses were shot in the attempt to extricate them Broadwood wisely ordered them to be abandoned, and they were soon engulfed in the Dervish masses.  Encouraged by this capture, the horsemen of Osman’s command daringly attacked the retreating cavalry.  But they were effectually checked by the charge of a squadron under Major Mahon.