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 them to land, &hellip; then a rush of wild Arabs, and all is over!" "It is very sad," he added, "but being ordained, we must not murmur." And yet he believed that the true responsibility lay with him: it was the punishment of his own sins. "I look on it," was his unexpected conclusion, "as being a Nemesis on the death of the two Pashas."

The workings of his conscience did indeed take on surprising shapes. Of the three ex-governors of Darfour, Bahrel-Ghazal, and Equatoria, Emin Pasha had disappeared, Lupton Bey had died, and Slatin Pasha was held in captivity by the Mahdi. By birth an Austrian and a Catholic, Slatin, in the last desperate stages of his resistance, had adopted the expedient of announcing his conversion to Mahommedanism, in order to win the confidence of his native troops. On his capture, the fact of his conversion procured him some degree of consideration; and, though he occasionally suffered from the caprices of his masters, he had so far escaped the terrible punishment which had been meted out to some other of the Mahdi's European prisoners—that of close confinement in the common gaol. He was now kept prisoner in one of the camps in the neighbourhood of Khartoum. He managed to smuggle through a letter to Gordon, asking for assistance, in case he could make his escape. To this letter Gordon did not reply. Slatin wrote again and again; his piteous appeals, couched in no less piteous French, made no effect upon the heart of the Governor-General. "Excellence!" he wrote. "J'ai envoyé deux lettres, sans avoir reçu une réponse de votre excellence. &hellip; Excellence! j'ai me battu 27 fois pour le gouvernement contre l'ennemi—on m'a feri deux fois, et j'ai rien fait contre l'honneur—rien de chose, qui doit empêché votre excellence de m'ecrir une réponse que je sais quoi faire. &hellip; Je vous prie, Excellence, de m'honoré avec une réponse. &hellip; P.S. Si votre Excellence ont peutêtre entendu que j'ai fait quelque chose contre l'honneur d'un officier et cela vous empêche de m'ecrir, je vous prie de me donner I'occasion de me defendre, et jugez apres la verité." The unfortunate