The Egyptian officials were
utterly incompetent; the soldiers were cowards. All his
admiration was reserved for his enemies. The meanest of the
Mahdi's followers was, he realised, 'a determined warrior, who
could undergo thirst and privation, who no more cared for pain or
death than if he were stone'. Those were the men whom, if the
choice had lain with him, he would have wished to command. And
yet, strangely enough, he persistently underrated the strength of
the forces against him. A handful of Englishmen-- a handful of
Turks would, he believed, be enough to defeat the Mahdi's hosts
and destroy his dominion. He knew very little Arabic, and he
depended for his information upon a few ignorant English-speaking
subordinates. The Mahdi himself he viewed with ambiguous
feelings. He jibed at him as a vulgar impostor; but it is easy to
perceive, under his scornful jocularities, the traces of an
uneasy respect.
He spent long hours upon the palace roof, gazing northwards; but
the veil of mystery and silence was unbroken. In spite of the
efforts of Major Kitchener, the officer in command of the
Egyptian Intelligence Service, hardly any messengers ever reached
Khartoum; and when they did, the information they brought was
tormentingly scanty. Major Kitchener did not escape the
attentions of Gordon's pen. When news came at last, it was
terrible: Colonel Stewart and his companions had been killed.
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