Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/205

 "Oh, yes, of course. They always commence operations in that way. But still they wouldn't have got anything like so long a start as they did if it had not been for the villagers themselves. The fellows who were despatched to this place to give us information of the raid actually put up for the night on their way here, and we didn't get the news till the next morning. What can you do with a people so 'casual' as that?"

It did seem a little easy-going, to be sure. One tried to imagine the Malise of Scott's poem stopping at a Highland inn, interrupting his wild career through the glens, with "danger, death, and deadly deed" behind him, for a cosy supper and a bed.

When the messengers did at last arrive the troops of the garrison were, it seems, engaged in manœuvring—"Egyptian Army resisting an attack of Dervishes," being the order of the day's programme, and a droll misunderstanding occurred. "The Dervishes have captured a village, sir," was the