delivered their attack half an hour after sunrise; on this occasion they decided to attack half an hour before dawn, when the whole scene was covered in darkness. Slatin knew all these plans, and as he listened anxiously in his place of confinement he was startled, when just dropping off to sleep, by "the deafening discharge of thousands of rifles and guns; this lasted for a few minutes, then only occasional rifle shots were heard, and now all was quiet again. Could this possibly be the great attack on Khartoum? A wild discharge of firearms and cannon, and in a few minutes complete silence!" He was not left long in doubt. Some hours afterwards three black soldiers approached, carrying in a bloody cloth the head of General Gordon, which he identified. It is unnecessary to add the gruesome details which Slatin picked up as to his manner of death from the gossip of the camp. In this terrible tragedy ended that noble defence of Khartoum, which, wherever considered or discussed, and for all time, will excite the pity and admiration of the world. There is no need to dwell further on the terrible end of one of the purest heroes our country has ever produced, whose loss was national, but most deeply felt as an irreparable shock, and as a void that can never be filled up by that small circle of men and women who might call themselves his friends. Ten years elapsed after the eventful morning when Slatin pronounced over his remains the appropriate epitaph, "A brave soldier who fell at his post; happy is he to have fallen; his sufferings are over!" before the exact manner of Gordon's death was known, and some even clung to the chance that after all he might have escaped to the Equator, and indeed it was not till long after the expedition had returned that the remarkable details of his single-handed defence of Khartoum became known. Had all these particulars come out at the moment when the public learnt that Khartoum had fallen, and that the expedition was to return without accomplishing anything, it is possible that there would have been a demand that no Minister could have resisted to avenge his fate; but it was not till the publication of the journals that the exact character of his magnificent defence and of the manner in which he was treated by those who sent him came to be understood and appreciated by the nation.