The European officers perished fighting
to the end; and the general met his fate sword in hand, at the head of
the last formed body of his troops, his personal valour and physical
strength exciting the admiration even of the fearless enemy, so that in
chivalrous respect they buried his body with barbaric honours. Mohammed
Ahmed celebrated his victory with a salute of one hundred guns; and well
he might, for the Soudan was now his, and his boast that, by God's grace
and the favour of the Prophet, he was the master of all the land had been
made good by force of arms.
No further attempt was made to subdue the country. The people of
the Soudan had won their freedom by their valour and by the skill and
courage of their saintly leader. It only remained to evacuate the towns
and withdraw the garrisons safely. But what looked like the winding-up
of one story was really the beginning of another, much longer, just as
bloody, commencing in shame and disaster, but ending in triumph and,
let us hope, in peace.
I desire for a moment to take a more general view of the
Mahdi's movement than the narrative has allowed. The original causes
were social and racial. But, great as was the misery of the people,
their spirit was low, and they would not have taken up arms merely on
material grounds.
