f a gathering
storm. The outlying villages were besieged, and many of those
villagers went over to the enemy. In some cases Gordon managed to
drive back the rebels from the parts they attacked, and bring back arms
and stores taken from them. More often the troops that were expected
to defend Khartoum put Gordon to shame by their feebleness and
cowardice, and suffered miserable defeat. Once, when attacking the
Mahdists, five of Gordon's own commanders deserted, and helped to drive
their own soldiers back to Khartoum.

As the year wore on, the siege came closer. Daily the Palace and the
Mission House were shelled, and men were killed as they walked in the
streets.

Money was scarce, and Gordon had little bank-notes made and used in
place of money, so that business still went on. But food grew scarcer
than money. Biscuits were the officers' chief food; dhoora that of the
men.

Again and again news was sent to him: "The English are coming."

Again and again he found that the English army that was to relieve
Khartoum had not yet started.

"The English are coming!" mocked the dervishes.

Day by day, Gordon's glass would sweep the steely river and the yellow
sand for the first sight of the men who were coming to save him and his
people.

At last, with sinking heart, he wrote: "The Government having abandoned
us, we can only trust in God."

"When our provisions, which we have, at a stretch, for two months, are
eaten, we must fall," wrote, to the _Times_, Frank Power, a brave man
and a true friend of Gordon.

In April the telegraph wires were cut by the enemy. After that, news
from England was only rarely to be had, and only through messengers who
were not often to be trusted.

Still hoping that an English army was coming, Gordon determined to send
his steamers half way to meet it. It meant that his garrison would be
weaker, should the Mahdi make any great attack, but Gordon felt that
England _could_ not fail him, and that in a very short time the
steamers would return, bringing a splendid reinforcement.

On September 10th, three steamers, with Colonel Stewart and Frank Power
in command, sailed down the Nile.

Gordon was left the only Englishman in Khartoum.

"I am left alone . . . but not alone," he wrote.

The steamer with Stewart and Power on board ran aground. The crew was
treacherously taken by a native sheikh, and Stewart, Power, and almost
all the others were cruelly murdered and their bodies