Each day at dawn, when he retired to rest, he bolted his door from the inside, and placed his faithful body-servant—Khaleel Agha Orphali—on guard outside it. On the fatal night, Gordon had as usual kept his vigil on the roof of the palace, sending and receiving telegraphic messages from the lines every few minutes, and as dawn crept into the skies, thinking that the long-threatened attack was not yet to be delivered, he lay down wearied out. The little firing heard a few minutes later attracted no more attention than the usual firing which had been going on continuously night and day for months, but when the palace guards were heard firing it was known that something serious |304| was happening. By the time Gordon had slipped into his old serge or dark tweed suit, and taken his sword and revolver, the advanced dervishes were already surrounding the palace. Overcoming the guards, a rush was made up the stairs, and Gordon was met leaving his room. A small spear was thrown which wounded him, but very slightly, on the left shoulder. Almost before the dervishes knew what was happening, three of them lay dead, and one wounded, at Gordon’s feet—the remainder fled. Quickly reloading his revolver, Gordon made for the head of the stairs, and again drove the reassembling dervishes off. Darting back to reload, he received a stab in his left shoulder-blade from a dervish concealed behind the corridor door, and on reaching the steps the third time, he received a pistol-shot and spear-wound in his right breast, and then, great soldier as he was, he rose almost above himself. With his life’s blood pouring from his breast—not his back, remember—he fought his way step by step, kicking from his path the wounded and dead dervishes—for Orphali too had not been idle—and as he was passing through the doorway leading into the courtyard, another concealed dervish almost severed his right leg with a single blow. Then Gordon fell. The steps he had _fought_ his way—not been dragged—down, were encumbered with the bodies of dead and dying dervishes. No dervish spear pierced the live and quivering flesh of a prostrate but still conscious Gordon, for he breathed his last as he turned to face his last assailant, half raised his sword to strike, and fell dead with his face to heaven. |305|