A sense of hard separateness came over her.

“Why is fighting more serious than anything else?” she asked.

“You either kill or get killed — and I suppose it is serious enough, killing.”

“But when you're dead you don't matter any more,” she said.

He was silenced for a moment.

“But the result matters,” he said. “It matters whether we settle the Mahdi or not.”

“Not to you — nor me — we don't care about Khartoum.”

“You want to have room to live in: and somebody has to make room.”

“But I don't want to live in the desert of Sahara —