Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/390

Rh says that unless the troops come in ten days the town may fall, and this because he had on November 12 written, "Omdurman fort has one and a half months' supply of food and water." With the fall of this fort, he knew that the end would soon come.

But up to this date the soldiers, who were not entitled to rations since they received money for their purchase, were given full rations, and there is every reason to believe that the pinch only came when Omdurman fort fell on January 14 or 15, and the town was completely hemmed in. Food was short, no doubt, but, eight days before the fall of the town, Gordon could spare from the stores fifteen hundred pounds of biscuits to provision a boat for the Europeans. One should only be filled with amazement that Gordon held out so long after the date when he had expected relief, and it is not only ridiculous but monstrous to attack him, because he did not calculate that the expedition would only arrive seventy-eight instead of seventy-six days late, when we know for certain that his troops were receiving full rations which they were not entitled to for at least a month after the date of the expected arrival of the expedition.

It is true that Gordon, seeing the food supplies giving out, recommended people to leave him and join the Mahdi, but this was only after more days had slipped away after the "ten days from December 14." He had then abandoned all hope, and saw that his prophecy was to come true — the expedition would arrive just "too late." In comparison with the number of widows whom Gordon had had to support