Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/384

Rh Bahr-el-Ghazal fell before Gordon had had time to turn round, and, for all that he or the Mahdi knew, the Equatorial province had fallen also. The town was hemmed in by the Mahdists, and the commanders of the garrisons which Gordon was expected to extricate were holding various commands in the dervish army, while Slatin had taken part already as a Mahdist in the subjugation of his subordinate, Said Bey Gumaa of El Fasher, who had refused to surrender. Am I not justified in saying that only the suppression of such facts made possible such attacks upon Gordon?

We are next told —

"Those who escaped massacre in Khartoum have often told me that they were perfectly ready to leave, and it was only Gordon's arrival that kept them back, but Gordon's arrival without troops had rather disappointed them. Had he been accompanied by five hundred British bayonets, his reputation in the Soudan might have been maintained, and probably the Mahdi would never have left Kordofan."

Why did not those perfectly ready to leave leave with the members of the Austrian mission, or leave between the date of their departure, December 11, and the early days of February, when the news of Gordon's mission first reached Khartoum? Who prevented their leaving during that interval of at least two months from the moment when they were all thrown into "indescribable dismay" until they heard of Gordon's appointment? And if, when he did arrive, they were so bitterly disappointed at his not being accompanied with five hundred British bayonets —