One Mob Of Assailants Made Their Way To The Palace.
Gordon came out
to meet them.
The whole courtyard was filled with wild, harlequin figures
and sharp, glittering blades. He attempted a parley. 'Where is your
master, the Mahdi?' He knew his influence over native races. Perhaps he
hoped to save the lives of some of the inhabitants. Perhaps in that
supreme moment imagination flashed another picture before his eyes;
and he saw himself confronted with the false prophet of a false religion,
confronted with the European prisoners who had 'denied their Lord,'
offered the choice of death or the Koran; saw himself facing that savage
circle with a fanaticism equal to, and a courage greater than, their own;
marching in all the pride of faith 'and with retorted scorn'
to a martyr's death.
It was not to be. Mad with the joy of victory and religious frenzy,
they rushed upon him and, while he disdained even to fire his revolver,
stabbed him in many places. The body fell down the steps and lay -
a twisted heap - at the foot. There it was decapitated. The head was
carried to the Mahdi. The trunk was stabbed again and again by the
infuriated creatures, till nothing but a shapeless bundle of torn flesh
and bloody rags remained of what had been a great and famous man and the
envoy of her Britannic Majesty. The blood soaked into the ground,
and left a dark stain which was not immediately effaced. Slatin mentions
that the Arabs used often to visit the place.
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