the last stages of exhaustion. Finally, the Mahdi or his
energetic lieutenant decided on one more arrangement, which was
probably the true cause of their success. The Mahdists had always
delivered their attack half an hour after sunrise; on this occasion
they decided to attack half an hour before dawn, when the whole scene
was covered in darkness. Slatin knew all these plans, and as he
listened anxiously in his place of confinement he was startled, when
just dropping off to sleep, by "the deafening discharge of thousands
of rifles and guns; this lasted for a few minutes, then only
occasional rifle shots were heard, and now all was quiet again. Could
this possibly be the great attack on Khartoum? A wild discharge of
firearms and cannon, and in a few minutes complete silence!" He was
not left long in doubt. Some hours afterwards three black soldiers
approached, carrying in a bloody cloth the head of General Gordon,
which he identified. It is unnecessary to add the gruesome details
which Slatin picked up as to his manner of death from the gossip of
the camp. In this terrible tragedy ended that noble defence of
Khartoum, which, wherever considered or discussed, and for all time,
will excite the pity and admiration of the world.

There is no need to dwell further on the terrible end of one of the
purest heroes our country has ever produced, whose loss was national,
but most deeply felt as an irreparable shock, and as a void that can
never be filled up by that small circle of men and women who might
call themselves his friends. Ten years elapsed after the eventful
morning when Slatin pronounced over his remains the appropriate
epitaph, "A brave soldier who fell at his post; happy is he to have
fallen; his sufferings are over!" before the exact manner of Gordon's
death was known, and some even clung to the chance that after all he
might have escaped to the Equator, and indeed it was not till long
after the expedition had returned that the remarkable details of his
single-handed defence of Khartoum became known. Had all these
particulars come out at the moment when the public learnt that
Khartoum had fallen, and that the expedition was to return without
accomplishing anything, it is possible that there would have been a
demand that no Minister could have resisted to avenge his fate; but it
was not till the publication of the journals that the exact character
of his magnificent defence and of the manner in which he was treated