WHAT SHALL BE DONEf 1 29 where forage for horses and camels was becoming scarce; and on the nth of February—a week after the rescue of the expedition a convoy arrived, consisting of the original escort under Colonel Talbot, with six companies of the Royal Irish, who had walked the whole distance across the desert from Korti. With them came Sir Redvers Duller, whose presence was at once an assurance that some decided movement would be made.

Sir Charles Wilson had already started for Korti. He had to report the result of the expedition to Khartum, and the failure of the object for which the desert column had been sent forward.

Sir Herbert Stewart still lay in so precarious a condition that it was feared the excitement of talkinsf to him about the fate of Gordon and Khartum would do him serious injury. Sir Charles, who never saw him again, says truly, " What an ill-fated expedition this has been! The whole Soudan is not worth the lives of men like Gordon and the two Stewarts.''

Sir Charles, with an escort from the Guards' camel regiment, started for Korti at half-past one on the morning of the 6th of February, and reached Abu-Klea at 9 a.m., finding the Sussex detachment there unmolested, and strengthened by a detachment of heavies. The battle-field was still a horrible spectacle, for numbers of the Arab slain were still unburied. At Gakdul, which was reached in the evening, the return party met the convoy on its way to Gubat, and also General Buller and Major Kitchener, who were both going thither, though whether the general orders would be to take Metammeh or to retire, was doubtful, opinion being divided between the probability of the programme being to burn Metammeh and retire to Wady Haifa: or to regard the expedition as having come to an end with the fall of Khartum. On the 8th the party started for Howeiyat, leaving the escort to return to Gubat with General Buller; and at sundown on the 9th reached Korti, where two days afterwards a telegram from the war secretary to Lord Wolseley said, " Express warm recognition of government of brilliant services of Sir C. Wilson, and satisfaction at gallant rescue of his party."

When the story of the expedition, of the fall of Khartum and Vol. IV. 62