Skirting the swamp we came to rough and higher ground and though I could see little in that darkness, I knew that we were walking up a hill.  Presently we crossed its crest and descending for three bowshots or so, I felt that my feet were on a road.  Now the guides turned to the left and after them in a long line came my army of thirty thousand archers.  In utter silence we went since we had no beasts with us and our sandalled feet made little noise; moreover orders had been passed down the line that the man who made a sound should die.

For two hours or more we marched thus, then bore to the left again and climbed a slope, by which time I judged we must be well past the town of Amada.  Here suddenly the guides halted and we after them at whispered words of command.  One of them took me by the cloak, led me forward a little way to the crest of the ridge, and pointed with his white-sleeved arm.  I looked and there beneath me, well within bowshot, were thousands of the watchfires of the King’s army, flaring, some of them, in the strong wind.  For a full league those fires burned and we were opposite to the midmost of them.

“See now, General Shabaka,” said the guide, speaking for the first time in a curious hissing whisper such as might come from a man who had no lips, “beneath you sleeps the Eastern host, which being so great, has not thought it needful to guard this ridge.  Now marshal your archers in a fourfold line in such fashion that at the first break of dawn they can take cover behind the rocks and shoot, every man of them without piercing his fellow.  Do you bide here with the centre where your standard can be seen by all to north and south.  I and my companion will lead your vanguard farther on to where the ridge draws nearer to the Nile, so that with their arrows they can hold back and slay any who strive to escape down stream.  The rest is in your hands, for we are guides, not generals.  Summon your captains and issue your commands.”

So we went back again and I called the officers together and told them what they were to do, then despatched them to their regiments.

Presently the vanguard of ten thousand men drew away and vanished, and with them the white-robed guides on whom I never looked again.  Then I marshalled my centre as well as I could in the gloom, and bade them lie down to rest and sleep if they were able; also, within thirty minutes of the sunrise, to eat and drink a little of the food they carried, to see that every bow was ready and that the arrows were loosened in every quiver.  This done, with a few whom I trusted to serve me as messengers and guard, I crept up to the brow of the hill or slope, and there we laid us down and watched.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BATTLE—­AND AFTER

Two hours went by and I knew by the stars that the dawn could not be far away.  My eyes were fixed upon the Nile and on the lights that hung to the prows of the Great King’s ships.  Where were those who had been sent to fire them, I wondered, for of them I saw nothing.  Well, their journey would be long as they must wade the river.  Perhaps they had not yet arrived, or perhaps they had miscarried.  At least the fleet seemed very quiet.  None were alarmed there and no sentry challenged.