twenty thousand
soldiers waited at Alexandria in a fever of impatience while Jackson and
his band, with some hundreds of voyageurs from other provinces, let it
be seen if their training on the St. Lawrence would serve against river
perils in ancient Egypt. Lord Wolseley was confident it would, for
during the Riel rebellion he had found out what stuff was in these men.
Still he dared not start his army until it was certain those formidable
cataracts could be surmounted. And that meant a month, let the men
strain as they might at paddles and hauling-lines--a month to wait, a
month for Gordon to wait.

[Illustration: THE PILOT, "BIG JOHN."]

"Oh," said Jackson, gloomily, "if Lord Wolseley had only trusted us
without any trial! Why, there was nothing, sir, in that Nile River we
hadn't tackled a hundred times as boys right here in the St. Lawrence.
When you talk of cataracts it sounds big, but we've got rapids all
around here, just plain every-day rapids, that will make their cataracts
look sick. Of course we did it--did it easy; but when we got up to the
top of the whole business, where was our army? Back in Alexandria, sir!
And it makes a man sad to know that those boys in Khartum were dying
just then; it makes a man mighty sad to know that!"

One sees what ground there may be for such lament on turning up the
dates of this unhappy Nile expedition, and the heart aches at the sight
of those dumb figures. Think of it! the relief-party reached Khartum
about February 1, 1885--_too late by less than a week_. Khartum had
fallen; Khartum, sore-stricken, lay in fresh-smoking ruins. And when at
last British gunboats, firing as they came, steamed into view of the
tortured city that had hoped for them so long, there was no General
Gordon within walls to thrill with joy. General Gordon was dead, cut
down ruthlessly by the Arabs _a few days before_--killed on January 27,
with his countrymen so near, so short a distance down the river, that
their camp might almost have been made out with field-glasses. What a
difference here a little more hurrying would have made, a very little
more hurrying!

It would be interesting indeed if we might hear the whole story of these
months spent in fighting a river, in battling with cataract after
cataract, in rowing and steering and sailing and hauling a fleet of
boats and supplies for an army up, up, up into unknown rapids, through a
burning desert, such a long, long way. It would be an inspiratio