As we approached, we heard firing in front, on Semna, the crescent mound which covered Maan. Parties of troops walked gently up its face to halt below the crest. Evidently we had taken the Semna, so we rode towards the new position. On the flat, this side of it, we met a camel with litters. The man leading it said, “Maulud Pasha,” pointing to his load. I ran up, crying, “Is Maulud hit?” for he was one of the best officers in the army, a man also most honest towards us; not, indeed, that admiration could anyhow have been refused so sturdy and uncompromising a patriot. The old man replied out of his litter in a weak voice, saying, “Yes, indeed, Lurens Bey, I am hurt: but, thanks be to God, it is nothing. We have taken Semna.” I replied that I was going there. Maulud craned himself feverishly over the edge of the litter, hardly able to see or speak (his thighbone was splintered above the knee), showing me point after point, for organising the hillside defensively.

We arrived as the Turks were beginning to throw halfhearted shells at it. Nuri Said was commanding in Maulud’s place. He stood coolly on the hilltop. Most men talked faster under fire, and acted a betraying ease and joviality. Nuri grew calmer, and Zeid bored.