I do not pretend to any special information not hitherto given to the public in this further matter, but the reader may consider for himself whether the conciliatory policy which Lord Salisbury pursued towards Russia in China at this time—­a policy which excited hostile criticism in England —­was designed to influence the impending conflict on the Upper Nile and make it certain, or at least likely, that when Great Britain and France should be placed in direct opposition, France should find herself alone.

With these introductory reflections we may return to the theatre of the war.

On the 7th of September, five days after the battle and capture of Omdurman, the Tewfikia, a small Dervish steamer—­one of those formerly used by General Gordon—­came drifting and paddling down the river.  Her Arab crew soon perceived by the Egyptian flags which were hoisted on the principal buildings, and by the battered condition of the Mahdi’s Tomb, that all was not well in the city; and then, drifting a little further, they found themselves surrounded by the white gunboats of the ‘Turks,’ and so incontinently surrendered.  The story they told their captors was a strange one.  They had left Omdurman a month earlier, in company with the steamer Safia, carrying a force of 500 men, with the Khalifa’s orders to go up the White Nile and collect grain.  For some time all had been well; but on approaching the old Government station of Fashoda they had been fired on by black troops commanded by white officers under a strange flag —­and fired on with such effect that they had lost some forty men killed and wounded.  Doubting who these formidable enemies might be, the foraging expedition had turned back, and the Emir in command, having disembarked and formed a camp at a place on the east bank called Reng, had sent the Tewfikia back to ask the Khalifa for instructions and reinforcements.  The story was carried to the Sirdar and ran like wildfire through the camp.  Many officers made their way to the river, where the steamer lay, to test for themselves the truth of the report.  The woodwork of the hull was marked with many newly made holes, and cutting into these with their penknives the officers extracted bullets—­not the roughly cast leaden balls, the bits of telegraph wire, or old iron which savages use, but the conical nickel-covered bullets of small-bore rifles such as are fired by civilised forces alone.  Here was positive proof.  A European Power was on the Upper Nile:  which?  Some said it was the Belgians from the Congo; some that an Italian expedition had arrived; others thought that the strangers were French; others, again, believed in the Foreign Office—­it was a British expedition, after all.  The Arab crew were cross-examined as to the flag they had seen.  Their replies were inconclusive.  It had bright colours, they declared; but what those colours were and what their arrangement might be they could not tell; they were poor men, and God was very great.