en in vain, all the money spent
upon the expedition entirely wasted. Gordon and his Egyptian garrison at
Khartoum had perished, and it seemed not unnatural that the authorities
at home should be blamed for the hesitation they had displayed in
sending out the expedition to rescue the heroic defenders. Even at the
last moment, they had countermanded their orders for the purchase of
camels, which, had they been available, would have enabled General
Stewart's desert column to march straight across, instead of being
obliged to send the camels backwards and forwards; and in that case the
steamers would have arrived in time to save Gordon, for it was but two
days before they reached Khartoum that the town had fallen.

Never was an expedition so utterly useless, never did brave men who had
fought their way through all difficulties find their efforts so
completely vain!

The news could not long be kept from the men. The words of passionate
grief and indignation that burst from their officers were soon caught up
and carried through the camp, and the rank and file joined with their
officers in a wholesale denunciation of those who were responsible for
this disaster which had suddenly overtaken the expedition. The future
was warmly debated among the officers. Some maintained that the
expedition having come so far, the money having been laid out, it would
be allowed to finish its work, to proceed to Khartoum, to recover the
city, crush the Mahdi, and restore peace and order to the Soudan. Others
asserted that after this failure to carry out the main object of the
expedition, the authorities at home might now hasten to withdraw an
expedition which they had only with apparent reluctance sent out at all.
Rupert feared that the latter alternative was the most probable, and
with it his hopes of seeing his brother before long were dashed to the
ground.

It was maddening to think that he was lying a helpless prisoner in the
hands of the Arabs in the mud-walled town but two miles away; for it was
now probable that the force would march back, and Edgar be left to his
fate. Easton and Skinner in vain attempted to cheer him. They had,
however, no arguments to combat his conviction that the expedition would
be abandoned, and could only fall back upon their belief that sooner or
later Edgar would manage to make his escape from the hands of the Arabs.
To Rupert's distressed mind this was poor consolation.

Lord Charles Beresford at once start