aybreak
on the 26th, for the theory that the Mahdi could have entered the town
one hour before he did was never a serious argument, while the
evidence of Slatin Pasha strengthens the view that Gordon was at the
last moment only overcome by the Khalifa's resorting to a surprise. On
one point of fact Sir Charles Wilson seems also to have been in error.
He fixes the fall of Omdurman at 6th January, whereas Slatin, whose
information on the point ought to be unimpeachable, states that it did
not occur until the 15th of that month.

When Sir Herbert Stewart had fought and won the battle of Abou Klea,
it was his intention on reaching the Nile, as he expected to do the
next day, to put Sir Charles Wilson on board one of Gordon's own
steamers and send him off at once to Khartoum. The second battle and
Sir Herbert Stewart's fatal wound destroyed that project. But this
plan might have been adhered to so far as the altered circumstances
would allow. Sir Charles Wilson had succeeded to the command, and many
matters affecting the position of the force had to be settled before
he was free to devote himself to the main object of the dash forward,
viz. the establishment of communications with Gordon and Khartoum. As
the consequence of that change in his own position, it would have been
natural that he should have delegated the task to someone else, and in
Lord Charles Beresford, as brave a sailor as ever led a cutting-out
party, there was the very man for the occasion. Unfortunately, Sir
Charles Wilson did not take this step for, as I believe, the sole
reason that he was the bearer of an important official letter to
General Gordon, which he did not think could be entrusted to any other
hands. But for that circumstance it is permissible to say that one
steamer--there was more than enough wood on the other three steamers
to fit one out for the journey to Khartoum--would have sailed on the
morning of the 22nd, the day after the force sheered off from
Metemmah, and, at the latest, it would have reached Khartoum on
Sunday, the 25th, just in time to avert the catastrophe.

But as it was done, the whole of the 22nd and 23rd were taken up in
preparing two steamers for the voyage, and in collecting scarlet coats
for the troops, so that the effect of real British soldiers coming up
the Nile might be made more considerable. At 8 A.M. on Saturday, the
24th, Sir Charles Wilson at last sailed with the two steamers,
_Bordeen_ and _Talataween_, and i