When the steamers had passed the batteries the Soudanese crews screamed with delight, lifting up their rifles and shaking them above their heads. Soon they saw the Government House at Khartoum above the trees, and excitement stirred every heart. The Soudanese commander, Khashm el Mus, kept on saying, “Do you see the flag?” No one could see the flag. “Then something has happened!” he muttered. However, there was no help for it; they had to go on past Tuti Island and Omdurman, spattered and flogged with thousands of bullets. “It is all over--all over!” groaned Khashm, as to the sound of the Nordenfeldt was added the deeper note of the Krupp guns from Khartoum itself. As they reached the “Elephant’s Trunk”--so the sand-spit was called below Khartoum--they saw hundreds of Dervishes ranged under their banners in order to resist a landing; so the order was given with a heavy heart: “Turn her, and run full speed down.” Then the Soudanese on board, who till now had been fighting enthusiastically, collapsed and sank wearily on the deck. The poor fellows had lost their all--wives, families, houses! “What is the use of firing? I have lost all,” said Khashm, burying his face in his mantle. But they got him upon his legs, and the moment of sorrowful despair changed again to desperate revenge. After all the steamers got safely back. And General Gordon--we left him alone in command of a hungry garrison--what of him? From examinations of Gordon’s officers taken later it seems that before daylight on the 26th of January the Arabs attacked one of the gates, and met with little or no resistance. There was reason to fear treachery. For some three hours the Arabs went through the city killing every one they met. Some of them went to the palace, and there met Gordon walking in front of a small party of men. He was probably going to the church, where the ammunition was stored, to make his last stand. The rebels fired a volley, and Gordon fell dead. It is reported that his head was cut off and exposed above the gate at Omdurman. We may be glad that it was a sudden death--called away by the God in whom he trusted so simply. Thus died one of England’s greatest heroes, one of the world’s most holy men. The siege had lasted 317 days, nine days less than the siege of Sebastopol, and the Mahdi ascribed the result to his God. In a letter sent to the British officers on the steamers he says: “God has destroyed Khartoum and other places by our hands. Nothing can withstand His power and might, and by the bounty of God all has come into our hands. There is no God but God. “MUHAMMED, THE SON OF ABDULLAH.” CHAPTER XXII KUMASSI (1900)