The moon had risen, and far away on the horizon gleamed the Southern Cross, like that celestial symbol which inspired the Roman Conqueror in his bivouac centuries ago, and helped to shape the destinies of Christendom. _Per hoc vince_--good men of our victory's true worth, and presage of our future work in these unhappy regions! The day's carnage had indeed been cruel; blood had been poured out like water; but there is a mysterious law in the working of Providence which forbids the continued existence of systems which have ceased to subserve the cause of progress. Mahdism has proved the most shameful and terrible instrument of bloodshed and oppression which the modern world has ever witnessed. It has reduced whole provinces to utter desolation, so that tracts once smiling and fertile are now but solitary wastes, the habitation of wild beasts. Thousands upon thousands of homesteads have been laid in ruins, and the innocent villagers outraged and tortured and murdered. As I entered the Mahdi's tomb on the following morning, I saw a band of natives casting stones with loud curses upon the spot where his body lay; and scores of unhappy creatures who on the night of the battle were liberated, after long years of imprisonment, lifted up their hands, and with streaming eyes thanked God for the destruction of their oppressor's rule. Mahdism has vanished, never to return, and once more the arms of Great Britain have advanced the cause of civilisation and "made for righteousness" in the history of the century. [Illustration: Battle of Omdurman. First Dervish attack. Battle of Omdurman. Second Dervish attack. _R. V. Darbishire 1898._] CHAPTER V GUNBOATS AND GAALIN No account of the recent campaign could be in any way complete if it did not include some mention of the valuable assistance rendered to the Sirdar and the Anglo-Egyptian forces by the gunboats and the Friendlies. I have thought it better to keep this portion of the narrative distinct from the rest, and to mould the present chapter more or less into the form of a diary. The Sirdar's fleet at the end of the campaign consisted of the following gunboats:--_Sultan_, _Sheikh_, _Melik_, _Fatteh_, _Nasr_, _Hafir_, _Tamai_, _Metemmeh_, and _Abu Klea_. In addition to these were the old unarmed _El Tahra_ and, up to 25th August, the gunboat _Zaphir_.