At last the quarrel is open.  He makes no effort to conceal his disgust.  ‘I leave you,’ he says, the ’indelible disgrace of abandoning the garrisons.’ [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring (telegraphic), received at Cairo April 16.] Such abandonment is, he declares, ’the climax of meanness.’ [Ibid, despatched April 8.] He reiterates his determination to abide with the garrison of Khartoum.  ’I will not leave these people after all they have gone through.’ [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring, Khartoum, July 30; received at Cairo October 15.] He tosses his commission contemptuously from him:  ’I would also ask her Majesty’s Government to accept the resignation of my commission.’ [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring (telegraphic), Khartoum, March 9.] The Government ’trust that he will not resign,’ [Earl Granville to Sir E. Baring, Foreign Office, March 13.] and his offer remains in abeyance.  Finally, in bitterness and vexation, thinking himself abandoned and disavowed, he appeals to Sir Evelyn Baring personally:  ’I feel sure, whatever you may feel diplomatically, I have your support—­and that of every man professing himself a gentleman—­in private’; [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring (telegraphic), received at Cairo April 16.] and as a last hope he begs Sir Samuel Baker to appeal to ‘British and American millionaires’ to subscribe two hundred thousand pounds to enable him to carry out the evacuation without, and even in spite of, the Governments of Cairo and London; and Sir Samuel Baker writes a long letter to the Times in passionate protest and entreaty.

Such are the chief features in the wretched business.  Even the Blue-books in their dry recital arouse in the reader painful and indignant emotions.  But meanwhile other and still more stirring events were passing outside the world of paper and ink.

The arrival of Gordon at Khartoum had seriously perplexed and alarmed Mohammed Ahmed and his Khalifas.  Their following was discouraged, and they themselves feared lest the General should be the herald of armies.  His Berber proclamation reassured them, and as the weeks passed without reinforcements arriving, the Mahdi and Abdullah, with that courage which in several great emergencies drew them to the boldest courses, determined to put a brave face on the matter and blockade Khartoum itself.  They were assisted in this enterprise by a revival of the patriotic impulse throughout the country and a consequent stimulus to the revolt.  To discover the cause it is necessary to look to the Eastern Soudan, where the next tragedy, after the defeat of Hicks, is laid.

The Hadendoa tribe, infuriated by oppression and misgovernment, had joined the rebellion under the leadership of the celebrated, and perhaps immortal, Osman Digna.  The Egyptian garrisons of Tokar and Sinkat were beleaguered and hard pressed.  Her Majesty’s Government disclaimed all responsibility.  Yet, since these towns were not far from the coast, they did not prohibit an attempt on the part of the Egyptian Government to rescue the besieged soldiers.  Accordingly an Egyptian force 3,500 strong marched from Suakin in February 1884 to relieve Tokar, under the command of General Baker, once the gallant colonel of the 1Oth Hussars.  Hard by the wells of Teb they were, on the 5th of February, attacked by about a thousand Arabs.