244 WITH KITCHENEK IN THE SOUDAN himself to the hottest fire and encouraged them, telling them that the more bravely they defended themselves the more likely they were to obtain favourable terms. The night before, he had advised them to accept any offer the Dervishes might make, but on the following morning he was missing, and none could give any account of what had become of him. The same tale is told by all to whom I have spoken.”

The story made a profound impression upon Gregory. It seemed possible that the father of whom he had no remembrance might have been the sole white survivor of Hicks’s army. True, there was nothing to prove that he was the white man who had joined the black battalion that escaped the first day’s massacre. There were other non-combatants, Vizitelly, the artist of the Illustrated London News, and O’Donovan, the correspondent of the Daily News. Either of these might also have been at any other portion of the square when the attack commenced, and unable to join Hicks and his ofiicers in their final charge into the midst of the enemy.

Still, it was at least possible that his father was the man who had retired from the field with the black battalion, and who had afterwards so strangely disappeared. If so, what had become of him all these years ? Had he made off in disguise only to be murdered by wandering bands ? Had he been concealed for months in the hut of a friendly tribesman? What had he been doing since ? Had he been killed in trying to make his way down? Had he been enslaved, and was he still lingering on in a wretched existence? He could hardly hope that he had fallen into friendly hands, for had he been alive he would surdy have managed, with his knowledge of the country, to make his way down, or to reach Khartoum when it was still held by the Egyptians.

At any rate Gregory concluded that he might find out whether any European had arrived there during the siege. He went down to the river and took a native boat across to Khartoum. At the ceremony on Sunday many natives watched the arrival of the flotilla, and some of these might