But at the critical moment the gunboat arrived on the scene and began
suddenly to blaze and flame from Maxim guns, quick-firing guns, and rifles.
The range was short; the effect tremendous. The terrible machine, floating
gracefully on the waters--a beautiful white devil--wreathed itself in smoke.
The river slopes of the Kerreri Hills, crowded with the advancing thousands,
sprang up into clouds of dust and splinters of rock. The charging Dervishes
sank down in tangled heaps. The masses in rear paused, irresolute. It was
too hot even for them. The approach of another gunboat completed their
discomfiture. The Camel Corps, hurrying along the shore, slipped past the
fatal point of interception, and saw safety and the zeriba before them.
Exasperated by their disappointment, the soldiers of Osman Sheikh-ed-Din
turned again upon the cavalry, and, forgetting in their anger the mobile
nature of their foe, pursued the elusive squadrons three long miles to the
north. The cavalry, intensely relieved by the escape of the Camel Corps,
played with their powerful antagonist, as the banderillo teases the bull.
Colonel Broadwood thus succeeded in luring this division of the Dervish
army far away from the field of battle, where they were sorely needed.
The rough ground, however, delayed the Horse battery. They lagged, as the
Camel Corps had done, and caused constant anxiety.
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