upon by such multitudes, being at the mercy and sport of
these savages, just as if one were a monkey or other curious animal, all
had a dulling effect on one's spiritual nature, and I felt that I must
be losing my mind; but yet in all these trials and afflictions God did
not leave us. Again a ray of hope shone through the obscurity.

We had already heard something about English troops, but the information
was very vague. One of the Mahdi's messengers, who took the Mahdi's
answer back to Gordon in Khartum, told me that Gordon had received him
well, had given him some bakshish, not like the God-forsaken Mohammed
Said Pasha, who had executed the Mahdi's messengers; but, prior to his
departure, Gordon had warned him in the following words:--"Go, tell the
Mahdi that I have only to stamp my feet on the ground, and thousands of
Englishmen will at once spring up." I believed this story, for I did not
think the messenger was clever enough to invent it; besides, I felt sure
that Gordon must have known quite well that he alone was utterly unable
to extinguish the fire of this gigantic revolt. But at length all these
reports were fully confirmed.

It was Friday. The Khalifas were out on parade, when two camels,
carrying an English mail, arrived. Khalifa Abdullah at once left the
review, and sent for Klootz to read the letters. Klootz came at once to
me and said that an entire English mail for Gordon had been captured
near Omdurman. It was clear from several letters that English troops
were advancing into the Sudan from three directions; that is to say,
from Suakin to Berber, from Korosko to Abu Hamed, and from Dongola,
where there were 20,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry. There was a
telegram from Cairo to Assuan announcing General Graham's advance; a
touching little letter from a young girl to her father in Khartum, whose
name I forget. In this letter she told of the alarm she felt for her
father's safety, and how she prayed daily that her father might not meet
the same fate as General Hicks. In another letter Gordon was informed
that L60,000 had been sent to him.

All these letters had been sent from Berber to General Gordon by Joseph
Cuzzi, who had written a letter to Gordon to that effect in Italian. One
letter said that it was well known that the Khalifa Abdullah was the
moving spirit of the revolt, and that the Mahdi merely supplied the
religious element; but Klootz did not translate this in the Mahdi's
presence. When the la