THE BATTLE OF OMDURMAN 193 the two men, who seemed to be actually dying of thirst. They then got up and managed to struggle on to Omdurman, their rifles being carried for them by some of their comrades. A private of the Warwicks suddenly dropped down dead from heat apoplexy, and was buried on the spot. The comparatively mild sufferings of our own men turned one’s thoughts to the crowded heaps of wounded wretches left behind us in the desert to the added tortures of that thirst which invariably accompanies gunshot wounds. How many thousands, too, of women and children would soon be weeping with all the wild lamentation of the East over the brave men who lay in the sleep of death far away upon the plain! Sorrow is the same all the world over—that dread factor in human life— and the terrific carnage of the day’s fighting had taken away the bread - winner -and protector from thousands of poor homes in the Sudan, and doomed many a household to starvation.

The battle was now to all intents and purposes over, and already vast flocks of vultures were wheeling round and round over the expanse of desert. Another halt was made on 13