. Gordon's head was hung on a
tree in Omdurman, and the wild multitude rejoiced in heaping curses on
it and insulting it.

After the palace, the Mission building was the next principal object on
which the wild, plunder-seeking Arabs vented their fury. General Gordon
had some time previously hired this building, which was of stone and
bomb-proof, and turned it into a powder magazine and ammunition store.
The Dervishes killed the guards mounted outside the garden, and then
broke in, while others clambered over the high wall. A black who was
employed in the Mission garden was lying on the point of death on his
mattress in the garden; the Dervishes ended his life by ripping open his
body.

The Mission gardener, brother Domenico Polinari, who had been left to
take charge of the Mission property, on the first alarm, had rushed to
the main gate of the garden to see what was the matter. He opened the
gate slightly, and, seeing an array of lances, he slammed to the gate
with all his might, and fled to a small hut in the garden which was full
of hay, and he hid himself in the corner underneath the hay. Several
slaves who were working in the garden followed his example; but they did
not stay long, for, thinking it was not a sufficiently good
hiding-place, they were running off to another hut when they were fallen
upon and massacred. Domenico heard their shrieks and the click of the
sword which beheaded them from his place of concealment; but he dared
not move from the spot, though half choked with the dry grass in which
he lay. Several Dervishes entered the hut and thrust their spears into
the hay to search for any one in concealment.

One can realize the terror of poor Domenico as the naked spear-heads
were forced through and almost touched him. He lay, however,
undiscovered for some hours, and at last the noise and din of
rifle-shots grew less. Though suffering agonies from thirst, he still
did not dare to move till close on midnight, when he emerged from his
bed of hay. All was still, the stillness of death. He could see the
Dervish guard fires; and, as he crept along, he stumbled over the dead
body of the black who had been working in the garden. Horror-stricken,
he slowly moved forward again. At every step he saw a dead man, all of
them labourers and watchmen who had attempted to escape when the
Dervishes entered. Creeping under the shadow of the large lemon-trees,
he reached the main gate, above which was a small hut whic