m came in sight (Jan. 28) the "relief force"
actually amounted to. As the two steamers ran slowly on, a solitary voice
from the river-bank now and again called out to them that Khartoum was
taken, and Gordon slain. Eagerly searching with their glasses, the
officers perceived that the government-house was a wreck, and that no flag
was flying. Gordon, in fact, had met his death two days before.

Mr. Gladstone afterwards always spoke of the betrayal of Khartoum. But
Major Kitchener, who prepared the official report, says that the
accusations of treachery were all vague, and to his mind, the outcome of
mere supposition. "In my opinion," he says, "Khartoum fell from sudden
assault, when the garrison were too exhausted by privations to make proper
resistance."(108) The idea that the relieving force was only two days late
is misleading. A nugger's load of dhura would not have put an end to the
privations of the fourteen thousand people still in Khartoum; and even
supposing that the handful of troops at Gubat could have effected their
advance upon Khartoum many days earlier, it is hard to believe that they
were strong enough either to drive off the Mahdi, or to hold him at bay
until the river column had come up.

VIII

The prime minister was on a visit to the Duke of Devonshire at Holker,
where he had many long conversations with Lord Hartington, and had to deal
with heavy post-bags. On Thursday, Feb. 5, after writing to the Queen and
others, he heard what had happened on the Nile ten days before. "After 11
A.M.," he records, "I learned the sad news of the fall or betrayal of
Khartoum. H[artington] and I, with C [his wife], went off by the first
train, and reached Downing Street soon after 8.15. The circumstances are
sad and trying. It is one of the least points about them that they may put
an end to this government."(109) The next day the cabinet met; (M66)
discussions "difficult but harmonious." The Queen sent to him and to Lord
Hartington at Holker an angry telegram--blaming her ministers for what had
happened--a telegram not in cipher as usual, but open. Mr. Gladstone
addressed to the Queen in reply (Feb. 5, 1885) a vindication of the course
taken by the cabinet; and it may be left to close an unedifying and a
tragic chapter:--

_To the Queen._

Mr. Gladstone has had the honour this day to receive your
Majesty's telegram _en clair_, relating to the deplorable
intelligence received this day from