In the Mahdi's Grasp

Description

In the Mahdi's Grasp by George Manville Fenn: A rousing boys'-adventure novel set during the Gordon Relief Expedition. Young army officer Harry Frere is captured and enslaved amid the wars in the Soudan, and his friends — including a determined doctor and a devoted servant — undertake a perilous journey to free him from the Mahdi's stronghold.

Fenn, one of the most prolific Victorian adventure novelists, spins a fast-moving tale of suspense, loyalty and derring-do through the deserts of the Sudan — an accessible, entertaining entry point into the era for readers who want adventure fiction rather than campaign history.

Excerpt

Sam—or, as he liked to be called, “Mr Samuel,” or “Mr Downes,” holding as he did the important post of confidential and body-servant to Dr Robert Morris, a position which made it necessary for him to open the door to patients and usher them into the consulting-room, and upon particular occasions be called in to help with a visitor who had turned faint about nothing—“a poor plucked 'un,” as he termed him—

To begin again:—

Sam, who was in his best black and stiffest white tie, consequent upon “the doctor” having company to dinner that evening, had just come out of the dining-room of the dingy house in Wimpole Street, carrying a mahogany tray full of dish covers, when cook opened the glass door at the top of the kitchen stairs, thrust her head into the hall, looked eagerly at Sam, as she stood fanning her superheated face with her apron, and said—

“Well?”