Scarcely any escaped. The Abyssinians indulged in all the
triumphs of savagery. The wounded were massacred: the slain were mutilated:
the town of Gallabat was sacked and burnt. The Women were carried into
captivity. All these tidings came to Omdurman. Under this heavy and
unexpected blow the Khalifa acted with prudence. He opened negotiations
with King John of Abyssinia, for the ransom of the captured wives and
children, and at the same time he sent the Emir Yunes with a large force
to Gallabat. The immediate necessities having thus been dealt with,
Abdullah prepared for revenge.
Of all the Arab leaders which fifteen years of continual war and tumult
throughout the Soudan produced, none displayed higher ability, none
obtained greater successes, and none were more honourable, though several
were more famous, than the man whom the Khalifa selected to avenge the
destruction of the Gallabat army. Abu Anga had been a slave in Abdullah's
family long before the Mahdi had preached at Abba island and while Egypt
yet oppressed the country. After the revolt had broken out, his
adventurous master summoned him from the distant Kordofan home to attend
him in the war, and Abu Anga came with that ready obedience and strange
devotion for which he was always distinguished. Nominally as a slave,
really as a comrade, he fought by Abdullah's side in all the earlier
battles of the rebellion.
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