The old sheik, Hatim, faithfully kept the promise he had made to the Greek, and carefully protected the children. The road to the upper White Nile was a difficult one. They rode through Getena, El-Dueim, and Kawa; then they passed Abba, a wooded island in the Nile, on which, before the Mahdi’s war, a Dervish had lived in a hollow tree the life of a hermit. The caravan had to go around wide tracts of land covered with papyrus and swamps called “Suddis,” from which the wind blew a stench caused by rotted and decaying leaves that had accumulated around obstructions in the river. The English engineers had once removed these obstructions, and at one time steamers could go from Khartum to Fashoda, and even farther up.^[15] But now the river was clogged up again, and as it could not flow freely, it overflowed both banks. The districts on the right and left banks were covered with a high jungle, from the midst of which heaps of ant-hills and isolated giant trees towered. In some places the woods extended to the stream. In dry places grew large groves of acacias.

During the first few weeks they still passed Arab settlements and small towns, consisting of houses with peculiar, ball-shaped roofs of straw, but on the other side of Abba, behind the settlement Gos-Abu-Guma, when they came to the land of the blacks, they found it quite deserted, for the Dervishes had carried off nearly all the natives and sold them in the slave-markets of Khartum, Omdurman, and other places. Those who escaped capture by hiding in the thickets and in the woods died of hunger and smallpox, which was unusually prevalent along the White and Blue Nile. The Dervishes themselves said that “entire nations” had died of it. Places that were formerly sorghum and banana plantations were now covered with jungle. Only wild animals multiplied, because there was no one to hunt them. Sometimes about sunset the children saw in the distance herds of elephants, that looked like moving rocks, slowly walking to their watering-place. As soon as Hatim, who was formerly an ivory-trader, caught sight of them he smacked his lips, sighed, and said confidentially to Stasch:

“Maschallah! How valuable they are! But they are not worth while hunting now, for the Mahdi has forbidden the Egyptian merchants to come to Khartum; so there is no one except the emirs to buy elephant tusks.”

Besides seeing elephants, they also came across giraffes, which ran off, treading heavily and swaying their long necks, as though they were lame. Behind Gos-Abu-Guma buffaloes and herds of antelope appeared more frequently. When the caravan was short of meat the men hunted them, but nearly always without success, for these animals are too watchful and fleet to be outwitted or cornered.

Usually the food was meted out somewhat sparingly, for in consequence of the land having been depopulated, one could not buy millet, bananas or fish, which the negroes of the Schilluk and the Dinka tribes used to sell to caravans in exchange for glass beads and copper wire.

Hatim saw that the children did not starve, though he kept Gebhr on short rations, and once, when they had halted for the night and were taking the saddles off the camels, Gebhr struck Stasch, and Hatim ordered him to be laid on the ground, and gave him thirty blows with a bamboo rod on the sole of each foot. For two days the cruel Sudanese could only walk on his toes, and he revenged himself on a young slave named Kali who had been given him.

At first Stasch felt almost glad that they had left the infected Omdurman and that he was now passing through countries which he had always longed to see. His strong constitution had, up to this time, withstood the fatigue of the journey quite well, and having plenty to eat, he regained his lost energy. On the march, and also during the halts for rest, he would again whisper to his little sister that it was possible to escape by way of the White Nile, and that he had by no means given up this idea. But he was worried about her health. Three weeks had now passed since they had left Omdurman. Nell had not been stricken with the fever as yet, but her face had become thin, and instead of getting tanned it had become more and more transparent, and her little hands had a waxen look. Stasch and Dinah, with the assistance of Hatim, saw that she was well cared for and that she had every comfort, but she missed the health-giving desert air. The damp, hot climate, together with the fatigue of the journey, sapped still more the strength of the delicate child.

When they reached Gos-Abu-Guma Stasch began giving her half a small quinine powder daily, and he was greatly troubled when he thought that he had not enough of this medicine to last very long and that he would not be able to get any more. But there was no help for it, because it was most necessary to take precautions against the fever. At times he would have yielded to fear and despair had it not been for the hope that Smain, if he wanted to exchange them for his own children, would have to find a more healthy place than Fashoda for them to live in.

But misfortune seemed to follow its victims continually. The day before they arrived in Fashoda, Dinah, who felt weak when they were in Omdurman, suddenly fainted and fell off the camel while opening Nell’s traveling bag, which they had brought with them from Fayoum. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Chamis and Stasch resuscitated her. But she did not regain consciousness until toward evening, and then only long enough to bid a tearful good-by to her beloved little lady and die. Gebhr wanted very much to cut the ears off the remains, so that he could show them to Smain as a proof that she had died on the way. That was what was done to slaves who died on a journey. But at the request of Stasch and Nell, Hatim did not allow this, and she was buried with honor, and stones and thorns were piled on her grave to protect it from hyenas. The children now felt even more lonely, for in losing her they had lost the only soul who stood near to them and who was devoted to them. To Nell especially it was a cruel blow, and during the night and the following day Stasch tried in vain to comfort her.

The sixth week of the journey had begun. On the following day, toward noon, the caravan reached Fashoda, but found it in ruins. The Mahdists bivouacked in the open air or in huts which had been hastily built of grass and branches. The settlement had been completely destroyed by fire three days before. Nothing remained but the smoke-blackened walls of the round clay huts and a wooden shed at the water’s edge, which during the time of the Egyptian rule had been used as a storehouse for ivory, and in which at the present time lived the leader of the Dervishes, the emir, Seki Tamala. He was a man who was respected by the Mahdists, a secret enemy of Calif Abdullah, but, on the other hand, a personal friend of Hatim. The emir was most hospitable to the old sheik and the children, but at the very beginning he told them an unwelcome piece of news.

Smain was no longer in Fashoda. Two days before he had started on an expedition after slaves in the district lying southeast of the Nile, and no one knew when he would return, for the next settlement had been deserted, so that it was necessary to seek merchandise in human beings at a great distance. It is true that not very far from Fashoda lies Abyssinia, with which country the Dervishes were at war. But Smain, who had only three hundred men, did not dare cross the borders, which were strictly guarded by the warlike inhabitants of the land and by the soldiers of King John.

Under these circumstances Seki Tamala and Hatim had to decide what was to be done with the children. The consultation was carried on chiefly during supper, to which the emir had also invited Stasch and Nell.

“I,” said he to Hatim, “with all my men must soon undertake a long expedition to the south, against Emin Pasha, who is in Lado, where he has steamers and soldiers. Hatim, you brought me the order to go. You must return to Omdurman, and then not a human being will be left in Fashoda. There are no comfortable houses here and nothing to eat, and besides, it is a very unhealthy place. I know that white people do not take smallpox, but the fever would kill these children in a month’s time.”

“I received orders to bring them to Fashoda,” answered Hatim, “and I have brought them here, and I do not really need to trouble myself further about them. But my friend, the Greek Kaliopuli, commended them to me, and for that reason I should not like them to die.”

“But that is what will certainly happen!”

“Then what is to be done?”

“Instead of leaving them behind in Fashoda, where there is not a human being, send them to Smain with the people who brought them to Omdurman. Smain has gone off toward the mountains, to a dry and high district, where the fever is not so fatal as here by the river.”

“But how will they find Smain?”

“By following the track of the fires. He will set fire to the jungle, in the first place, so as to drive the game into the ravines, where it can be easily hunted down, and secondly, to frighten away the heathen from the thickets, where they have fled from their pursuers——and so it will not be difficult to find Smain.”

“But will they be able to overtake him?”

“He will sometimes remain a whole week in a place, as he has to smoke meat. But even if he should go on after two or three days, they will certainly overtake him.”

“But why should they run after him? He will return to Fashoda.”

“No; if he should be successful in his hunt for slaves he will take them to the towns to the market——”

“Then what is to be done?”

“Remember that when we two leave Fashoda, if the children remain here they will either succumb to the fever or starve to death.”

“By the prophet, that is true!”

So there was nothing else to do but send the children on a new expedition. Hatim, who had proved himself a good man, was especially worried, fearing that Gebhr—whose cruelty he had discovered during the journey—would wreak his vengeance on them. But the terrible Seki Tamala, of whom even his own soldiers stood in dread, ordered the Sudanese to come before him, and told him that he must deliver the children alive and well to Smain, and treat them well, for if he did not he would be hanged. Besides that, the good Hatim begged the emir to give little Nell a slave to wait on her and to nurse her during the journey and in Smain’s camp. Nell was greatly pleased with this gift, especially when she found that the slave was a young girl of the Dinka tribe, with pleasant features and a sweet expression.

Stasch knew that to remain in Fashoda meant death, so he did not beg Hatim not to send them on another journey—their third. Besides, in the depths of his soul he thought that when riding toward the southeast they would have to approach the borders of Abyssinia, and might be able to escape. Moreover, he cherished the hope that on those dry heights Nell might escape the fever. For all these reasons he gladly and enthusiastically began making preparations for the journey.

Gebhr, Chamis and the two Bedouins also had nothing to say against the expedition, for they, too, reckoned that at Smain’s side they might be able to capture larger numbers of slaves and that they could then sell them to advantage at the markets. They knew that slave-traders sometimes attain great wealth; at any rate, they preferred to ride instead of remaining where they were under Hatim’s and Seki Tamala’s strict rule.

But the preparations for departure took considerable time, especially because the children had to rest. Camels could not be used for this journey, and so the Arabs and also Stasch and Nell were to ride on horses, while Kali, Gebhr’s slave, and Nell’s servant, who was called “Mea,” at Stasch’s suggestion were to go on foot. Hatim also supplied a donkey, which carried a tent intended for the girl, and also enough provisions to last the children three days. Seki Tamala could give them no more. A kind of ladies’ saddle was constructed for Nell out of palm and bamboo mats.

The children spent three days in Fashoda recovering from their journey, but the numerous swarms of gnats by the river made a further stay impossible. During the day there were a great many large blue flies, which, although they did not bite, were very troublesome because they got into one’s ears, eyes, and mouth. Stasch had once heard in Port Said that gnats and flies spread fever and the germs of an eye disease, so at last he besought Seki Tamala to let them start as soon as possible, especially as the spring rainy season was about to begin.