Then the retreat began; but it was more like a triumphal progress.  Attended by a considerable following, and preceded by tales of the most wonderful miracles and prodigies, the Mahdi retired to a mountain in Kordofan to which he gave the name of Jebel Masa, that being the mountain whence ‘the expected Guide’ is declared in the Koran sooner or later to appear.  He was now out of reach of Khartoum, but within reach of Fashoda.  The Egyptian Governor of that town, Rashid Bey, a man of more enterprise and even less military knowledge than is usual in his race, determined to make all attempt to seize the rebel and disperse his following.  Taking no precautions, he fell on the 9th of December into an ambush, was attacked unprepared, and was himself, with fourteen hundred men, slaughtered by the ill-armed but valiant Arabs.

The whole country stirred.  The Government, thoroughly alarmed by the serious aspect the revolt had assumed, organised a great expedition.  Four thousand troops under Yusef, a Pasha of distinguished reputation, were sent against the rebels.  Meanwhile the Mahdi and his followers suffered the extremes of want.  Their cause was as yet too perilous for the rich to join.  Only the poor flocked to the holy standard.  All that Mohammed possessed he gave away, keeping nothing for himself, excepting only a horse to lead his followers in battle.  Abdullah walked.  Nevertheless the rebels were half-famished, and armed with scarcely any more deadly weapons than sticks and stones.  The army of the Government approached slowly.  Their leaders anticipated an easy victory.  Their contempt for the enemy was supreme.  They did not even trouble themselves to post sentries by night, but slept calmly inside a slender thorn fence, unwatched save by their tireless foes.  And so it came to pass that in the half-light of the early morning of the 7th of June the Mahdi, his ragged Khalifas, and his almost naked army rushed upon them, and slew them to a man.

The victory was decisive.  Southern Kordofan was at the feet of the priest of Abba.  Stores of arms and ammunition had fallen into his hands.  Thousands of every class hastened to join his standard.  No one doubted that he was the divine messenger sent to free them from their oppressors.  The whole of the Arab tribes all over the Soudan rose at once.  The revolt broke out simultaneously in Sennar and Darfur, and spread to provinces still more remote.  The smaller Egyptian posts, the tax-gatherers and local administrators, were massacred in every district.  Only the larger garrisons maintained themselves in the principal towns.  They were at once blockaded.  All communications were interrupted.  All legal authority was defied.  Only the Mahdi was obeyed.