SIR HERBERT WOUNDED. 151 a dark figure now and then creeping from bush to bush.

It was now nearly nine o'clock, and just about this time happened a terrible disaster. Sir Herbert Stewart, while superintending the arrangements of the zeriba, received a bullet in the groin, and dropped mortaLy wounded. It was a fearful blow to us all, when we heard of it. Leaving out of the question the personal feelings of the whole force, who were, every one of them, devotedly attached to him, it was a catastrophe at a most critical time, since it left the column unexpectedly without a head.

Burnaby, next in seniority, had fallen at Abu Klea, and so the command devolved on Sir Charles Wilson, the dipJomatic messenger intended by Wolseley to communicate with Gordon at Khartoum. The sad news was kept strictly secret, and only by degrees did it ooze out amongst the officers that poor Sir Herbert had received his death wound, and that his death was only a question of a few hours.

We now received orders to occupy a ridge of ground about sixty yards distant on our right front, and build a tiny work of boxes and saddles there