“One bitterly cold morning, with two feet of snow on the ground, I joined a detachment of prisoners, escorted by Roumanians. We travelled viâ Sistoon to Bukarest, crossing the Danube by the Russian pontoon bridge. This journey, which lasted eight days, was the most dreadful part of my experience, lying as it did through snow-clad country, with storms and bitter winds. I and fifty others had seats on carts; the bulk of the prisoners had to tramp. I saw at least 400 men drop, to be taken as little notice of as if they were so much offal, to die of starvation, or be devoured by the wolves which prowled around our column. “Over each man who fell a hideous crowd of crows, ravens, vultures, hovered until he was exhausted enough to be attacked with impunity. “Some of the soldiers of the escort were extremely brutal; others displayed a touching kindness; most were as stolid and apathetic as their captives. Of Osman’s army of 48,000 men, only 15,000 reached Russian soil; only 12,000 returned to their homes. “In Bukarest our sufferings were at an end. In the streets ladies distributed coffee, broth, bread, tobacco, cigarettes, spirit. Our quarters in the barracks appeared to us like Paradise.” Then by train to Kharkoff, where Herbert got a cheque from his father, and was allowed much freedom on parole; he made many friends, was lionized and feasted and fattened “like a show beast.” “I was treated,” he says, “with all the chivalrous kindness and open-handed hospitality which are the characteristics of the educated Russians. The effects of the brutal propensities developed in warfare wore off speedily, and I am now a mild and inoffensive being, whose conscience does not allow the killing of a flea or the plucking of a flower!” From “The Defence of Plevna,” by W. V. Herbert, 1895, by kind permission of Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co. CHAPTER XXI SIEGE OF KHARTOUM (1884) Gordon invited to the Soudan--The Mahdi--Chinese Gordon--His religious feeling--Not supported by England--Arabs attack--Blacks as cowards--Pashas shot--The _Abbas_ sent down with Stewart--Her fate--Relief coming--Provisions fail--A sick steamer--_Bordein_ sent down to Shendy--Alone on the house-top--Sir Charles Wilson and Beresford steam up--The rapids and sand-bank--“Do you see the flag?”--“Turn and fly”--Gordon’s fate. In January, 1884, Charles Gordon was asked by the British Government to go to Egypt and withdraw from the Soudan the garrisons, the civil officials, and any of the inhabitants who might wish to be taken away. It was a dangerous duty he had to perform, as the Mahdi, a religious pretender in whom many believed, had just annihilated an Egyptian army led by an Englishman, Hicks Pasha, and, supported by the Arab slave-dealers, had revolted against Egyptian rule.