THE BELEAGUERED CITY AND ITS THREE DEFENDERS. 87 one works with a will. Colonel Stewart, with arms bared, like a gunner, himself points with good effect the guns ; General Gordon is up before dawn —often all night—overlooking and ordering. He is as kind as he is great, this wonderful general. And the beauty of it all is he does not know he is either. Like Carlyle’s truly great man he is perfectly unconscious of his greatness. Let him tell you himself what he is doing :— “ April 23.—Thunderstorms in all directions at night. The rising of the Nile will enable steamers to destroy irrigating machines along river banks, and thus prevent any cultivation.

“April 24.—Rain during night. Thermometer 90 deg.

“April 27.—Usual Friday church parade. Not many rebels in south front. Yesterday Steamers went up White Nile and captured four cows, two donkeys, 25 sheep and three prisoners.

“April 27.-—We are all well and strong. “July 30.—The people refuse to let me go out on expeditions, owing to the bother which would arise if anything happened, so I sit on tenter-hooks of anxiety. To show you the Arabs fire well, two of our steamers which are blinded received 970 and 860 hits in their hulls respectively. I should think we have fired half a million cartridges. It may be bad taste to say it, but if we get out of this give Stewart a K. C. M. G., and spare me at all costs. You will thus save me the disagreeableness of having to refuse, but I hate these things. If we get out it is in answer to prayer, and not by our might, and it is a true pleasure to have been here, though painful enough at times. We have a decoration with three degrees—silver, silver gilt, and pewter, with inscription “ Siege of Khartoum,” with a grenade in centre. School children and women have also recem d one ; consequently I am very popular with the black ladies of Khartoum. We must fight it out with our own means ; if blessed by God we shall succeed ; if not His will, so be it. All is for the best. I will conclude in saying we will defend ourselves to the last; that I will not leave Khartoum ; that I will try and persuade all Europeans to escape, and that I am still sanguine that, by some means not clear, God will give us an issue.”* Let us say as was said of a great man once: “For ourselves, we feel that there is actually a kind of sacredness in the fact of such a man being sent into this Earth.”

And is no army coming from England after all ? the blacks are asking.

We have trusted you, lent you money, fought for you, and you have promised to succour us. When is help coming ?—When indeed ? An English army is certainly on the road, but it is a long road, and before they can travel it—!— Telegraphic despatches from General Gordon to Sir Evelyn Baring.