It was the firing of the guns at the Citadel, and as a soldier he knew what they were—they were the minute guns for the General’s funeral. _Boom—boom_! He could see what was taking place as plainly as if his eyes beheld it; the square of the mosque lined up with troops—two battalions of Infantry, one regiment of Cavalry, and two batteries of Artillery. _Boom—boom_! The coffin on the gun-carriage covered with the silken Union Jack and with the General’s sword and his plumed white helmet on the top of all. _Boom—boom_! The General’s charger immediately behind the body, with his spurred boots in the stirrups reversed. _Boom—boom—boom_! The officers of the Army of Occupation drawn up by the door of the General’s house, every one of them that could be spared from duty except himself, who ought, above all others, to be there. Then the carriages of the Consul-General and of the Egyptian Prime Minister, and then _boom—boom—boom—boom_, as the cortège moved away to the slow squirling of the funeral march, through the square of the mosque and under the gate of the old fortress. The firing ceased, and in the dumb emptiness of the air Gordon saw another sight that tore at his heart still more terribly. It was a room in the General’s house, dark and blind, with curtains drawn, and Helena sitting there, alone for the first time, and no one to comfort her. Seeing this, and thinking of the barrier that was between them, of the blood that was dividing them, and that they could never again come together, all his manhood went down at last, and he burst into tears like a boy. "Forgive me, Helena! I am alone too! Forgive me, forgive me!" Then over the sound of his own voice he heard the innocent voices of the choir-boys singing their evening hymn—"Remove my sin from before Thy sight, O God!"—and at the next moment he was conscious of an old and wrinkled hand being laid on his bare arm and of somebody by his side who was saying huskily— "Peace, my son! God is merciful!" Then the sharp rattle of three volleys of musketry coming from far away. The body of the General had been committed to the grave. *CHAPTER VI* Helena had been in the act of sending out her letter when the General’s Aide-de-camp came in with news of the doings of the night before—the riot at El Azhar, Gordon’s assault on Colonel Macdonald, and then his disappearance, before the troops could recover from their surprise, as suddenly and unaccountably as if he had been swallowed up by the earth. "Of course Macdonald acted like a brute," said the young Lieutenant, "and the Colonel did exactly what might have been expected of him under the circumstances. He would have done the same if the offender had been the Commander-in-Chief himself. But now he has to pay the penalty, and it cannot be a light one. Macdonald is scouring the city to find him—every nook and corner of the Mohammedan quarter. He has two motives for doing so, too—ambition and revenge."