Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/392

Rh In discussing this food question with Khartoum survivors, I laid particular stress upon the feeding of the women and children, and I can do no better than give the summing-up of it in the words of a native survivor, after I had translated to him the criticisms I am replying to — "What! Would Gordon Pasha send away the hungry women and children of soldiers who had been killed fighting for the Government?"

I pass over extract No. 5 for the moment to refer to No. 6. The use of my portrait in advertising the book I am quoting from led most to believe that I approved of the criticisms it contained, and I have taken this opportunity of showing how thoroughly I disagree with them. To say that Slatin and others had offered, at the risk of their lives, to join Gordon is hardly correct, and if Gordon did not vouchsafe a written answer to the letters he received, he probably had good reason for not doing so, especially as it appears likely that some of Said Bey Gumaa's letters addressed to the GovernorGeneral before Gordon's appointment had succeeded in getting through to Khartoum, and from these and deserters from the Mahdi, Gordon must have learned all.

Under pretence of intending to submit, Gumaa gained time, and tried to hurry up reinforcements, but this having been suspected, Zoghal ordered Slatin, Tandal, the President of the Civil Court, Aly Bey Ibrahim-el-Khabir, Slatin's head-clerk Ahmad Riad, and a few others, to send in an ultimatum to Gumaa,