146 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

disarm as they entered my presence, and kept their hands upon their swords. I could not help thinking that certainly no Mussulman would have let them go again, and so, at any rate, my being Christian was relied on by them for safety."

It was to be war, and the situation was becoming still more perilous. The treacherous pashas, who were executed on the evening of the same day that the messengers of the Mahdi were sent back, had stolen the two months' pay given for the troops on account of the six months' arrears. They had taken out with them seventy rounds of cannon ammunition instead of the usual eight rounds, in order that the rebels might lay hold of it, and the house of Hassan was stored with rifles and ammunition. " We are daily expecting British troops," telegraphed the Times correspondent. " We cannot bring ourselves to believe that we are to be abandoned by the government. Our existence depends on England." Gordon was not going to give up without struggling to the last, however. There was little or no hope of his getting the people out of Khartum now, and he would not think of escaping and leaving them to do as they best could. The telegram ended by saying that he was then mounting a Krupp gun on an iron lighter so that he might be able to reach the rebel camp on the river. The steamers were actively going hither and thither on both rivers attacking the rebels, who, it was said, intended to sink barges to bar the passage, and to stretch twisted lengths of telegraph wires across the stream. The latter they afterwards accomplished, but the force of the water swept away the obstructions.

By the end of March Gordon knew that the government had emphatically and at considerable length recapitulated the reasons which led them to refuse their consent to the appointment of Zebehr Pasha. He had no certain ground to go upon, and it began to seem to him that if he must be left entirely to his own devices and without aid he should be permitted to act on his own responsibility. He did not neglect to defend the city and the people, to whom he regarded himself as being pledged in return for their having kept faith with him. He and they must stand