ers must not come armed for fear of frightening
the people. To this Colonel Stewart agreed, and was the only one who
was armed, he carrying a small revolver. Suleiman accepted from Colonel
Stewart a sword and a dress as gifts. When Stewart and his party were
in the house, Suleiman came outside and made some signs to his people,
who were hanging about in large numbers. Immediately they divided into
two parties, one proceeding to the house, the other to the steamer's
crew landed on the bank, and the whole were massacred. News has
recently reached Cairo to the effect that the perpetrator of this
cold-blooded and treacherous murder has at last paid the penalty of his
crime, being slain in a conflict with Saleh Bey. All the official
documents that Gordon had sent for the British authorities fell into
the hands of the Mahdi, giving him the most exact information as to the
supply of ammunition and food within the walls of Khartoum. These
documents were at once sent to the Mahdi, and it is generally supposed
that at this present moment they are lying in the Fort at Omdurman,
outside Khartoum.

The loss of the _Abbas_ was a cause of great grief to General Gordon,
and again and again he refers to it. Writing on November 5th he says:--

"I cannot get out of my head the _Abbas_ catastrophe; that the
_Abbas_ (with her 970 bullet marks on her, her gun, and her
parapets, which were bullet proof) could be captured by force seems
impossible; that she ran upon a rock seems unlikely, for she had
her sides defended by buffers, sunk one foot in water. I also
warned them against ever anchoring by the bank, also to take wood
from isolated spots; in fact as far as human foresight goes, I did
all my possible.... You will notice the number of Greeks (on
board). They were a bodyguard I ordered and paid highly, to prevent
any treachery on the part of the crew. Thus the question of
treachery was duly weighed by me, and guarded against, as far as I
could--both on the part of the crew, and on the part of the
inhabitants--and I told them to anchor mid-stream, and not to take
wood except in isolated spots."

One can only echo the words of Mr. Egmont Hake: "It is impossible to
read this without a feeling of admiration for the thorough way in which
General Gordon examined into the minutest details of everything
himself. Every precaution human foresight could conceive he took to
ensure the safety