The Khalifa had fled! The Egyptian
cavalry were at once to pursue him. The 21st Lancers must await further
orders. Slatin appeared very much in earnest. He talked with animated
manner to Colonel Broadwood, questioned two of the surrendered Emirs
closely, and hurried off into the dusk, while the Egyptian squadrons,
mounting, also rode away at a trot.
It was not for some hours after he had left the field of battle
that Abdullah realised that his army had not obeyed his summons,
but were continuing their retreat, and that only a few hundred Dervishes
remained for the defence of the city. He seems, if we judge from the
accounts of his personal servant, an Abyssinian boy, to have faced the
disasters that had overtaken him with singular composure. He rested until
two o'clock, when he ate some food. Thereafter he repaired to the Tomb,
and in that ruined shrine, amid the wreckage of the shell-fire,
the defeated sovereign appealed to the spirit of Mohammed Ahmed to help him
in his sore distress. It was the last prayer ever offered over the Mahdi's
grave. The celestial counsels seem to have been in accord with the dictates
of common-sense, and at four o'clock the Khalifa, hearing that the Sirdar
was already entering the city, and that the English cavalry were on the
parade ground to the west, mounted a small donkey, and, accompanied by his
principal wife, a Greek nun as a hostage, and a few attendants, rode
leisurely off towards the south.
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