The
Abbas, after having passed uninjured through the part of the
river commanded by the Mahdi's troops, had struck upon a rock;
Colonel Stewart had disembarked in safety; and, while he was
waiting for camels to convey the detachment across the desert
into Egypt, had accepted the hospitality of a local Sheikh.
Hardly had the Europeans entered the Sheikh's hut when they were
set upon and murdered; their native followers shared their fate.
The treacherous Sheikh was an adherent of the Mahdi, and to the
Mahdi all Colonel Stewart's papers, filled with information as to
the condition of Khartoum, were immediately sent. When the first
rumours of the disaster reached Gordon, he pictured, in a flash
of intuition, the actual details of the catastrophe. 'I feel
somehow convinced,' he wrote, they were captured by treachery...
Stewart was not a bit suspicious (I am made up of it). I can see
in imagination the whole scene, the Sheikh inviting them to
land... then a rush of wild Arabs, and all is over!' 'It is very
sad,' he added, 'but being ordained, we must not murmur.' And yet
he believed that the true responsibility lay with him; it was the
punishment of his own sins. 'I look on it,' was his unexpected
conclusion, 'as being a Nemesis on the death of the two Pashas.'
The workings of his conscience did indeed take on surprising
shapes.
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