116 THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN.

toum, having on board General Sir Charles Wilson. Major Gascoine, Captain Trafford, Lieutenant Stuart-Wortley, and detachments of the Sussex Regi¬ ment. Three hours later, at eleven o’clock, they received a word of en¬ couragement. Stopping at the village of Gandatu a powerful Sheikh of the name of Hussein sends a messenger on board to say that his tribe, the Shagiyeh, would join the English when their power was established, remark¬ ing also that the British troops were held in much dread, and that their victories had produced a great effect. That night the steamers stopped at Bewena. On the following day they pushed on, not without a brisk fire from the enemy. Indeed, this soon became so hot that it was determined to travel by night.

It was a strange little expedition this, and a notable one. Two little steamers, manned by a small number of men, linking the great army that had come from England to the great general that army came to save. Well might they be proud of their post. And they were. It was no trivial duty, this allotted to them, and bravely did they undertake it. All along the banks at short intervals were the enemy and the enemy’s guns, and as the two vessels steamed past them a deadly lire from cannon and rifle sought to stay their progress. Even in the darkness of night, as was echoed the noise of the passing vessels, the enemy could be heard calling to arms, and the dark and dimly seen banks were lit up with the flare of hostile torches and the flash of discharging musketry.

Now they near the invested city—the prison of their comrade, the object of all their hopes, and all their fears. At once a fierce fire breaks out upon them from every side. Shells burst on the very decks ; bullets fly over them and around them till it seems scarcely possible that even now they can reach the goal.

On the morning of the 28th Khartoum is sighted, but here the enemy crowd thick. A battery of four Krupp guns opens upon them from Halliyeh ; then the battery from the island of Tuti; then the guns from Omdurman ; finally even the Krupps in the city itself pour upon them a great hail of iron. Smoke and flashes of fire line the banks beside them, the banks before them. Seven thousand rifles and sixteen cannon are doing their utmost to annihilate them. Will there be aught left of this relieving band to perform the work for which they set out ?

The thought comes over them : is it thus our general has been attacked all along 1 Do those at home image to themselves this infuriate crowd of savages gathered round this one man, all bent on taking his life ? willing, nay glad, to lose their own, so that their hated foe shall not escape. And this is what the great Gordon Las been fighting against ! This is the warfare he has kept up, month after month, so quietly mentioned in those simply-written,