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the dark days towards the end of January news reached England telling us the exertions of our soldiers on the Nile had been rendered fruitless by treachery at Khartoum. For several days the most conflicting accounts were received as to the real state of affairs. At one moment Gordon was said to have escaped the general massacre and to have retired towards the equator, at another that he was defending himself in a church; and then later on that he had fallen—

Few will ever forget those days; a dull sense