Postscript.—My Lord, after what I have stated to you, your servant awaits your orders; if your answer is that I should wait (here) or otherwise.
This is (all) that is needful (to write). Salaam.
APPENDIX Ud.
Copy of Telegram from his Excellency Gordon Pasha to his Excellency Ferratch Ullah Bey, Commandant of Omdurmān.
Sheikh Mahomed Achmed has sent us a letter to inform us that Lupton Bey, Mudir of Bahr Gazelle, has surrendered to him, and that the small steamer in which was Stewart Pasha has been captured by him, together with what was therein. And he demands that we should surrender to him.
But to me it is all one whether Lupton Bey has surrendered or has not surrendered. And whether he has captured twenty thousand steamers like the Abbas, or twenty thousand (officers) like Stewart Pasha (or not); it is all one to me.
I am here, like iron, and hope to see the newly-arrived English; and if Mahomed Achmed says that the English die, it is all the same to me. And you must take a copy of this and give it to the messenger from Slātin, and send him out early in the morning, that he may go to him. It is impossible for me to have any more words with Mahomed Achmed, only lead; and if Mahomed Achmed is willing to fight he had better, instead of going to Omdurmān, go to the White Nile by the moat.
And after this the messengers whom he wants to send to us must not come by the Omdurmān; they had better come by the moat afore-mentioned. And send a literal copy of this, according to orders—when it has been sealed by you—by the emissary of Slātin Bey to be delivered, and explain to him that this is by our order.