eid, while his troops conducted the investment of
Khartoum. But when the new year of the Mohammedan Calendar commenced,
on October 21st, and the Mahdi had heard, through the capture of
Colonel Stewart's papers, of the difficulties that Gordon was in, he
appears to have mustered his courage and to have brought up 30,000 men
to intimidate Gordon. When called upon to surrender the following was
the reply that Gordon returned: "If you are the real Mahdi, dry up the
Nile and come over, and I will surrender." It is said that the Mahdi
took him literally, and lost 3000 men in an attempt to walk across the
Nile! Be that as it may, the Mahdi ordered an attack, which was
conducted with some vigour. It was resisted successfully by Gordon,
aided by his twelve steamers and 800 men, but the fighting must have
been severe, for it lasted for eight hours. The bursting of mines and
torpedoes carried more havoc into the ranks of the enemy than Gordon's
men did. Material things of this kind at least responded to the will of
him who organised them, and did not prove cowardly or treacherous.

The Mahdi then retreated to a more respectful distance, and, it is
said, hid himself in a cave, prophesying that there should be sixty
days of rest, and that then blood would flow like water. The real truth
of the matter is that the Mahdi's military advisers saw that there was
little use in attempting to capture Khartoum by direct assault. Having
full information from Stewart's papers that the food supply could not
last long, they prudently decided to starve out the garrison.

* * *

English officers have before now gone through trying sieges, as, for
instance, Lawrence and Havelock at Lucknow, and Sale at Jellalabad, but
it would be difficult in the whole of the military history of England
to find a case in which an officer was left single-handed to contend
with such frightful odds for so long a time. The siege lasted 317 days,
very nearly as long as the siege of Sebastopol. English officers have
usually had a few of their own countrymen, on whom they could rely and
with whom they could take counsel, to share their hardships. But Gordon
stood alone, and the troops he had were not only foreigners, but, with
a few exceptions, they were cowards, and he knew that very few of them
were really loyal to him. Nothing but his extraordinary personality
kept the force together. His opinion of these miserable troops is
frequ