88 THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN.

Worse than all, before this a telegram comes all the way from England to say that no help will be sent. Whether the three Englishmen tell this sad news to the poor hoping blacks or not we cannot say. Let us hope not. But they themselves ? Do they despair ? Listen again :— “Since the despatch which arrived the day before yesterday all hope of relief by our Government is at an end, so when our provisions, which we have at a stretch for two months, are eaten we must fall, nor is there any chance, with the soldiers we have, and the great crowd of women, children, etc., of our being able to cut our way through the Arabs.” Then some news about successes quietly stated, and then the sentence—“ General Gordon is quite well, and Colonel Stewart has quite recovered from his wound. I am quite well and happy.”* No ; they did not despair. They were “happy ;” it was a “true plea¬ sure to have been there,” they say. Was there ever in all history greater devotion to duty ? What was the Soudan to them or they to the Soudan that they should die for it ? For they died. There was no compensation ; nothing to make death easy but the sense of having done what they ought to have done. Ah! reader, does not your heart ache for them? Three thousand miles from all they loved ; not even a kind message from home, fr< m a wife, or a sister, not even a “ well done ”—not in this world—to cheer them. Yet they are “ happy.” Thank God for that.— Let us return to the “ relief ” expedition.

* Telegraphic despatches from Mr. Power, dated July 31, KHARTOUM PROM THE RIVER.