Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/185

 Rh for them a more salubrious place than the neighborhood of Fashoda.

But misfortune seemed continually to pursue its victims. On the day before the arrival at Fashoda, Dinah, who while in Omdurmân felt weak, fainted suddenly at the untying of the small luggage with Nell's things taken from Fayûm, and fell from the camel. Stas and Chamis revived her with the greatest difficulty. She did not, however, regain consciousness, or rather she regained it at the evening only to bid a tearful farewell to her beloved little lady, and to die. After her death Gebhr insisted upon cutting off her ears in order to show them to Smain as proof that she died during the journey, and to demand of him a separate payment for her abduction. This was done with a slave who expired during the journey. But Hatim, at the entreaties of Stas and Nell, would not consent to this; so they buried her decently and her mound was safeguarded against hyenas with the assistance of stones and thorns. The children felt yet more lonely for they realized that in her they had lost the only near and devoted soul. This was a terrible blow, particularly for Nell, so Stas endeavored to comfort her throughout the whole night and the following day.

The sixth week of the journey arrived. On the next day at noon the caravan reached Fashoda, but they found only a pyre. The Mahdists bivouacked under the bare heaven or in huts hurriedly built of grass and boughs. Three days previously the settlement had been burnt down. There remained only the clay walls of the round hovels, blackened with smoke, and, standing close by the water, a great wooden shed, which during the Egyptian times served as a storage-place for ivory; in it at present lived the commander of the dervishes, Emir Seki Tamala. He was a distinguished personage among the Mahdists,