CHAPTER XVIII.

The worst news possible Deliberations Convoy back to Gakdul On the march again.

NEXT day, the ist of February, was a Sunday, and we all paraded* as usual for church in our Sunday-goto-meeting red jumpers and trousers. It struck me at the time that all the staff wore a very serious look, but none of us were prepared for the awful news that they had to impart. Gradually it trickled out amongst the officers that the worst possible catastrophe had happened. Khartoum had fallen! and Gordon was probably killed !

Our first feeling was that, if the news were true, the object of the expedition was gone ; that all our fighting and the lives of so many of our men had been thrown away for nothing ; and that, as usual, the Government had sent us out too late ! Our second, that we were in (so to speak) rather a hole ; that the besieging hordes of the Mahdi were now let loose, and were not improbably within measurable distance