toum
he began to realise what a force the mahdi had become. In March he wrote
to the English government, 'I shall be caught in Khartoum, and even if I
was mean enough to escape, I've not the power.' He begs both for men and
money, but no notice was taken of his letter; so in April he telegraphs
to sir Evelyn Baring, the English agent in Cairo, saying that he had
asked sir Samuel Baker to try and obtain L30,000 from English and
American millionaires to enable him to get three thousand Turkish
soldiers, 'who would settle the mahdi for ever. I do not see the fun of
being caught here to walk about the streets as a dervish with sandalled
feet,' he goes on; 'not that I shall ever be taken alive.'

He had been sent expressly to evacuate the Soudan, yet he was not
allowed to do it when it came to the point, and, as usually happens,
attempts at compromise proved failures. An expedition was despatched to
Suakim, and two bloody battles were fought, but the only result of these
was to inflame the zeal of the mahdi's followers and to enable him to
capture Berber, the key of the Soudan.

In Khartoum Gordon was using all his skill to fit the place to stand a
siege, for he speedily saw that his garrison of one thousand Soudanese
were all he had to rely on, the three thousand Egyptians and
Bashi-Bazouks being worse than useless. Later his troops amounted to
about double the number, and the population which he had to feed he
reckoned at forty thousand. The provisions, he estimated, would last for
five months; but in the end they had to do for ten, and up to the very
last, when all else was eaten, there was still some corn left in the
granary.

* * * * *

While the river was yet open, and before the Arabs had cut off all
communication between Khartoum and the outer world, Gordon managed to
send away some old and helpless soldiers, various government officials,
and two thousand three hundred refugees, who had fled to the town for
safety. Everything he could think of was done for their comfort; and in
order to prevent the poor black women and children from feeling strange
and frightened, he ordered colonel Duncan to ask a German woman living
at Korosko to be ready to meet and help them. In Khartoum itself there
were no fevers or pestilence, and food was given daily to the very poor.

It was in the middle of March that the town, with its three rings of
defence, was invested by the Arabs; but when the time