n the hut of a
friendly tribesman? What had he been doing, since? Had he been killed,
in trying to make his way down? Had he been enslaved, and was he still
lingering on, in a wretched existence?

He could hardly hope that he had fallen into friendly hands; for, had
he been alive, he would surely have managed, with his knowledge of the
country, to make his way down; or to reach Khartoum, when it was still
held by the Egyptians.

At any rate, Gregory concluded that he might find out whether any
European had arrived there, during the siege. He went down to the
river, and took a native boat across to Khartoum. At the ceremony, on
Sunday, many natives watched the arrival of the flotilla; and some of
these might have been there, in Gordon's time. He had no great hopes of
it, but there was just a chance.

The flags were still flying over the governor's house, when he landed,
and a detachment of Egyptian troops was stationed there. A native
officer came down, when he landed.

"I have come across to question some of the natives," he said. "I
believe some are still living here."

"Oh, yes, Bimbashi! there are a good many, scattered about among the
ruins. They come in, bringing fruit and fish for sale. I think they
mostly live down by the riverside."

Gregory kept on, till he came to the huts occupied by the fishermen,
and men who cultivated small plots of ground. He found several who had
lived at Khartoum, when it was captured; and who had escaped the
general massacre, by hiding till nightfall, and then making their way
up the river, in boats. None of them could give him the information he
sought, but one suggested that he was more likely to hear from the
Greeks and Turks, who worked in the Khalifa's arsenal and foundries; as
they had been spared, for the services they would be able to render to
the Mahdi.

Returning to Omdurman, he went to the machine shop. Here work had
already been resumed, as repairs were needed by several of the
gunboats. He went up to the foreman, a man of some sixty years of age.

"You were engaged in the city during the siege, were you not?" he said,
in Arabic, with which he knew the foreman must be thoroughly
acquainted.

"Yes, sir, I had been here ten years before that."

"I am very anxious to learn whether any white man, who had survived the
battle of El Obeid, ever reached this town before its capture."

The man thought for some time.

"Yes," he said, "a white man certainly came here,