GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 149 Gordon's untimely fate was subsequentlyfurnished by a native of Wady Haifa named Abdul Kerim. This man had been a cavass of Ibrahim Bey Ruchdi, who had accompanied Gordon from Cairo to Khartoum in the capacity of chief clerk. Abdul Kerim declared that he had actually seen General Gordon killed. He gave the following particulars:— At early morning on January 26 Faragh Pasha treacherously opened the gate in the southern wall. The bulk of the Mahdi's fighting men wereclose at hand, and at oncerushed into the town. General Gordon,hearing the confusion,hurried out of the palace, armedwith a sword and an axe.* He was accompanied by Ibrahim Bey, the chief clerk, and twenty men. He went towards the house of theAustrian consul,but on his wayhe met a party of the Mahdi's men, who fired a volley at him, and shot him dead. The Arabs then rushed onwith their spears,and killed the chief clerk and nine of the men; the others managingto escape. Abdul Kerimalso declared that he hadactually seenGordon's body lying outside the palace;that the corpsehad apparently not been subjected to any exceptional indignities, but that the savageSoudanese, as is their custom, had thrust the body through and through with their spears. These stabs were all inflicted after death, however,the actual cause of death being agun-shot wound which must have deprived the hero of life both swiftly and painlessly. Abdul Kerim stated, moreover, that Herr Hansal, the Austrian consul, had been killed in his own house,but thatM.Nicola, the Greek consul,hadhadhis life spared, being simply taken prisoner. A doctor also hadescaped death,but all the other Europeans,includingthe Greeks employed at the Arsenal,had been killed,together with most of thenotables.

tary correspondent at Dongola, who professed to have taken it down from the lips of two of Gordon's soldiers who wereonduty inside the city when it was delivered up to the Mahdi's partisans.* " Khartoum fell," said they, " through the treachery- of the accursed Faragh Pasha, theCircassian, whoopened thegatecalled'Bouri.' It wason theBlue Nile. We were onguard near, but didnot see what was goingon. We were attacked and fought desperately at the gate. Twelve of us were killed and twenty-two retreated to a high room, where we weretakenprisoners.

"And now came the ending. The red flag with the crescent was destined no more to wave over the palace; nor would the strainsof the hymn of his Highness the Effendina be heard ant- more at evening within Khartoum. Blood was to flow inher streets, inher dwellings, inher verymosque,and on the Kenniseh of theNarsira.

"A cry arose, 'To the palace! to the palace!' A wild and furious band rushed towards it,but they were resisted by the black troops, who fought desperately.

Theyknewthere was no mercyfor them, and that even were their lives spared they wouldbe enslaved, and the state of the slave, the perpetualbondage with hard taskmasters, is worse than death. Slaves are not treated well,as you think;heavy chains are round their ankles andmiddle, and they are lashed for the least offence till bloodflows. We had fought for the Christian Pasha and for the Turks, andwe knew that we should receive no mercy. We, the partyIwas with,could not helpbeing takenprisoners. The house was set on fire. The fight raged,and the slaughter continued tillthe streets were slippery with blood. The rebels rushed onward to the palace. We saw a mass rolling to and fro, but did not see Gordon Pasha killed. He met his fate as he was leaving the palace near the large tree which stands on the esplanade. The palace is not a stone's throw, or at any rate a gunshot distance, from the Austrian consul's house. He was goingin thatdirection, to the magazine on theKenniseh, a longwaj* off. We did not hear what becameof his body,nor did we hear that his head was cut off. We have heard that it was the blacks that ran away, and that theEgyptian soldiers fought well;that is not true. They were craven. Had it not been for them, in spiteof the treacheryofmany within the town, the Arabs would not have got in,for weiwatched the traitors.

Inreference to the natives the cavass affirmed thatthe majority of the inhabitants fraternized with the Mahdi's men,and thatno womenor children werekilled; all who surrendered andgaveup theirvaluablesbeingallowedtogo away without harm. This assertion was inno wise corroboratedby otheraccounts. A letter writtenby oneof the captive missionariesand brought by a messenger to Padre Vincentini at Dongola formallystatedthat Khartoumhad beensacked and itspeople massacred. We calculate," said the writer," the number of victims at over 2,000. The Consul Hansal was murdered, with all the Europeansand General Gordon."

These reports of amassacrehavingtakenplace on the fall of Khartoum were to some extent confirmed by the number ofbodies whichSir Charles Wilson andhis party are said to have seenfloatingdown the Nile. Severalof these werecoupled and tiedback to back, after much the same fashion as the suspects, whomthe pro-consul Carrier drowned at Nantes during the great French, revolution. Contrary to what was generally believed, there appear to have been a number of Europeans in, Khartoum at the time when it fell. According to the Egyptian soldier, so often quoted," the little Germantailor, Klein,who,for twenty-fiveyearshadresided inKhartoum, remained till the last. His wife and four daughters remained too. There were also several white women— daughters of Europeansby Abyssinian wives,whom they had°bought ; and there were two or three ladiesat the Austrian consul's. Ithink all these had so many family ties that they would not leave; besides,Gordon always said,'TheEnglish are coming.'"

The latest account that has come to hand of the capture of Khartoum was supplied by the DailyNews mili-"And now fearful scenes tookplaceinevery house and building,in the largemarket-place,in the small bazaars.

There were the same terrible scenes in the dwellings where the window-sillsand door-lintels w-ercpaintedazrek (blue), wherethere had beenmany feasts and fantasias, where merissahad flowedinplenty, and wherethe walls were built of wahal and the roof built of dhurra stalk. Men were slainshrieking for mercy, whenmercy wasnot in the hearts of our savage enemies. Women and children wererobbed of their jewelsof gold and jew-elsof silver, of their bracelets, necklaces ofpreciousstones, and carried off to be sold to the Bishareen merchants as slaves. Yes, and white women too— Egyptians and Circassianswhoworeveilsovertheirfaces, andhead-dresses showing them to be of the upper classes, with goldor silver ornaments in their hair— ladies, in fact, clad in embroideredmuslinand silk and satin cloaks and jackets. Mother and daughter alike weredragged off from their * These men, named Said Abdullah and Jacob Mahomet, were, according to their own account,taken prisonersatthe time the Mahdi's followers entered the city, and wereafterwards sold as slavesby their Arab captors to some Kabbabish merchants. They escaped when at Abandom, andmade their way.to Debbah and thence to Dongola. * According to another narrative Gordon was armed' with a revolver whichhe discharged upon therebels before beingshot down.