It was at first universally believed that the Khalifa’s intention was to retire to an almost inaccessible distance—­to El Obeid or Southern Darfur—­and the officers of the Egyptian army passed an unhappy fortnight reading the Ladysmith telegrams and accusing their evil fortune which kept them so far from the scene of action.  But soon strange rumours began to run about the bazaars of Omdurman of buried weapons and whispers of revolt.  For a few days a vague feeling of unrest pervaded the native city, and then suddenly on the 12th of November came precise and surprising news.  The Khalifa was not retreating to the south or to the west, but advancing northward with Omdurman, not El Obeid, as his object.  Emboldened by the spectacle of two successive expeditions retreating abortive, and by, who shall say what wild exaggerated tales of disasters to the Turks far beyond the limits of the Soudan, Abdullah had resolved to stake all that yet remained to him in one last desperate attempt to recapture his former capital; and so, upon the 12th of November, his advanced guard, under the Emir Ahmed Fedil, struck the Nile opposite Abba Island, and audaciously fired volleys of musketry at the gunboat Sultan which was patrolling the river.

The name of Abba Island may perhaps carry the reader back to the very beginning of this story.  Here, eighteen years before, the Mahdi had lived and prayed after his quarrel with the haughty Sheikh; here Abdullah had joined him; here the flag of the revolt had been set up, and the first defeat had been inflicted upon the Egyptian troops; and here, too, still dwelt—­dwells, indeed, to this day—­one of those same brothers who had pursued through all the vicissitudes and convulsions which had shaken the Soudan his humble industry of building wooden boats.  It is surely a curious instance of the occasional symmetry of history that final destruction should have befallen the last remains of the Mahdist movement so close to the scene of its origin!

The news which had reached Khartoum set all wheels in motion.  The IXth and XIIIth Soudanese Battalions were mobilised on the 13th of November and despatched at once to Abba Island under Colonel Lewis.  Kitchener hurried south from Cairo, and arrived in Khartoum on the 18th.  A field force of some 2,300 troops—­one troop of cavalry, the 2nd Field Battery, the 1st Maxim Battery, the Camel Corps, IXth Soudanese, XIIIth Soudanese, and one company 2nd Egyptians—­was immediately formed, and the command entrusted to Sir Reginald Wingate.  There were besides some 900 Arab riflemen and a few irregular mounted scouts.  On the 20th these troops were concentrated at Fashi Shoya, whence Colonel Lewis had obliged Ahmed Fedil to withdraw, and at 3.30 on the afternoon of the 21st the expedition started in a south-westerly direction upon the track of the enemy.