THE REIGN OF TERROR 3

The true civilization came too late on the scene.

Its spasmodic efforts had been stemmed by the

dead-weight of vested interests in Cairo and Khartoum ; Great Britain would not move, being

jealously watched by the Powers and fearful of the

magnitude of the task as compared with the

apparent ultimate gain ; Gordon had died after

being sent to Khartoum to retire the alien civilians and garrisons ; and not until dreadful developments had ensued was it thoroughly realized that the

alternatives had been civilization or virulent bar-

barism, and that barbarism triumphantly menaced a

continent.

When a people's nerves get out of joint, the very

violence of the cataclysm leads to a cure through

sheer self-exhaustion. This was the case in the

great revolution of France, when, though so many

innocent suffered, the bad also turned upon bad to

the community's purification. So also in the

Dervish Sudan, more or less honest ideals dete-

riorated on achievement of victory, or the need of

the mask was lost sight of; Arab fell upon Arab

while the slow insistence of an inexorable wave

gathered strength in the north. Murder and exter-

mination, vice and corruption, did their work, and

while the warlike qualities of the people, their

faith in the Khalifa as a soldier, and their hatred of

the Christian, sufficed to give cohesion to many,

their numbers were not as before, neither was the

vigour of their fanaticism so overwhelming nor the power of resistance so great.

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