Bishara remained unsatisfied, and at length, despairing of infusing energy into Hammuda, he ordered his subordinate Osman Azrak to supersede him.  Osman was a Dervish of very different type.  He was a fanatical and devoted believer in the Mahdi and a loyal follower of the Khalifa.  For many years he had served on the northern frontier of the Dervish Empire, and his name was well known to the Egyptian Government as the contriver of the most daring and the most brutal raids.  His cruelty to the wretched inhabitants of the border villages had excluded him from all hope of mercy should he ever fall into the hands of the enemy.  His crafty skill, however, protected him, and among the Emirs gathered at Firket there was none whose death would have given greater satisfaction to the military authorities than the man who was now to replace Hammuda.

Whether Osman Azrak had actually assumed command on the 6th of June is uncertain.  It seems more likely that Hammuda declined to admit his right, and that the matter still stood in dispute.  But in any case Osman was determined to justify his appointment by his activity, and about midday he started from the camp at Firket, and, accompanied by a strong patrol of camel-men, set out to reconnoitre Akasha.  Moving cautiously, he arrived unperceived within sight of the position at about three o’clock in the afternoon.  The columns which were to storm Firket at dawn were then actually parading.  But the clouds of dust which the high wind drove across or whirled about the camp obscured the view, and the Dervish could distinguish nothing unusual.  He therefore made the customary pentagonal mark on the sand to ensure good luck, and so returned to Firket to renew his dispute with Hammuda, bearing the reassuring news that ’the Turks lay quiet.’

The force which the Sirdar had concentrated for the capture of Firket amounted to about nine thousand men, and was organised as follows:—­

Commander-in-Chief:  The sirdar

The Infantry Division:  Colonel hunter Commanding

1st Brigade           2nd Brigade            3rd Brigade
Major Lewis           major Macdonald        major Maxwell
3rd Egyptians         IXth Soudanese         2nd Egyptians
4th     "             XIth     "             7th     "
Xth Soudanese         XIIth    "             8th     "
XIIIth   "

Mounted Forces:  Major burn-Murdoch

Egyptian Cavalry . . . . 7 squadrons
Camel Corps . . . . . 8 companies

Artillery

Horse Artillery    .   .   .   . 1 battery
Field Artillery    .   .   .   . 2 batteries
Maxim Guns    .    .   .   .   . 1 battery

Two roads led from Akasha to Firket—­one by the bank of the river, the other inland and along the projected railway line.  The Sirdar determined to avail himself of both.  The force was therefore divided into two columns.  The main column, under