CHAPTER VII.
THE LAST RECONNAISSANCE "No one," said Durrance, and he strapped his field-glasses into the leather case at his side.
"No one, sir," Captain Mather agreed.
"We will move forward." The scouts went on ahead, the troops resumed their formation, the two seven-pounder mountain-guns closed up behind, and Durrance's detachment of the Camel Corps moved down from the gloomy ridge of Khor Gwob, thirty-five miles southwest of Suakin, into the plateau of Sinkat.

It was the last reconnaissance in strength before the evacuation of the eastern Soudan.
All through that morning the camels had jolted slowly up the gulley of shale between red precipitous rocks, and when the rocks fell back, between red mountain-heaps all crumbled into a desolation of stones.
Hardly a patch of grass or the ragged branches of a mimosa had broken the monotony of ruin.

And after that arid journey the green bushes of Sinkat in the valley below comforted the eye with the pleasing aspect of a park.

The troopers sat their saddles with a greater alertness.
They moved in a diagonal line across the plateau toward the mountains of Erkoweet, a silent company on a plain still more silent.

It was eleven o'clock.