The net result was only fully known to the lonely man who month after month stood on the ramparts of Khartoum, beleaguered by the Mahdi’s innumerable hosts, looking out over the desert and down the Nile for the army of relief which ought even then to have been there, and which was waiting for politicians to finish their wrangles before it even started. Then, week after week, the weary working and waiting went on, the ring of spears drawing ever closer and closer round the doomed city, the provisions within rapidly dwindling, and the lonely soldier, the last of his blood now left in Khartoum, was still looking vainly northward. So Monday morning, the 26th of January, came, and in the dim light that comes before the dawn the Arabs made their last and successful assault. The moon had set at one o’clock. The famished garrison made but little resistance. Gordon at the head of about a score of men faced the incoming victors near the church of the Austrian mission. The eastern sky was just reddening with the coming dawn when a stream of Arabs, shouting for Islam and victory, rushed into the open space that had been made round the church. They stopped and put up their rifles. An irregular volley crackled along their line, and when the smoke had drifted away there was nothing for the belated expedition to do but avenge the death of the betrayed and deserted hero. It was about midday on the 28th when a couple of steamers, with Sir Charles Wilson and a detachment of the Sussex Regiment on board, steamed out on to the broad stretch of river above which Khartoum stands at the junction of the Blue and White Nile. Half-an-hour told the miserable truth. There was no flag flying from the battlements, and no English voice to bid the tardy comers welcome. But there is to be a welcome of a sort, for, as the boats come within range, the guns of Khartoum open fire on them and a spattering hail of rifle-balls drop about them, and the puffs of smoke leap up from every point along the banks till the circle round the boats is completed. Of this there could be only one meaning: Gordon the deserted was dead. And this meaning was true, though we did not know the full truth of it until long after all that was left of him on earth had been scattered, graveless and uncared for, over the wind-swept sands of the Soudan. There is his grave; there, too, now is his monument--the memory of the work he did and the deathless fame he earned. On those who sent him to the forefront of the battle and left him there to die History has not yet given her verdict. When she does it will, as usual, be a just one, and, in all probability, it will not form very pleasant reading for those of their descendants who may be animated with anything like a proper pride of ancestry. XII _CECIL RHODES_ “_ALL ENGLISH--THAT’S MY DREAM!_” XII CECIL RHODES