The chaplain had read the solemn words, the volleys had been fired, to waken the echoes from where they had slumbered among the ruins of Khartoum, and the victorious general and his brave staff had paid their last duties of respect.
As the combined flags floated and waved together with a soft rustle in the desert wind, the general and his officers drew back from the hero’s grave and then stood fast, as a thin, worn-looking, sun-burned man in tattered white cotton garments, and bearing his left arm in a sling, stepped forward—a dervish slave in dress, but with the bearing of a British officer, and closely followed by a black.
For the moment it seemed like an intrusion, and there was a movement amongst the Sirdar’s guard as if to force them back. But an officer raised his hand, and then whispered to another at his side—
“Gordon’s friend; a prisoner with him at his death.”
“Yes, but the black fellow?” said the other, in the same low tone.
“Pst! Tell you after—brother—came in disguise—to seek him out.”
Then all stood watching in the midst of a painful silence as they saw the rescued victim of the Mahdi’s reign of terror sink softly upon his knees by his leader’s grave and lay upon it a leaf freshly taken from a neighbouring palm, while his companion stood reverently close behind.
A minute had elapsed, and then those present drew back, and a hand was laid upon the kneeling man’s shoulder.
The latter rose slowly, and he who had silently warned him that it was time to go heard him murmur—
“Goodbye, brave soldier and truest friend. I did my best. But it is not Goodbye: for you will be always with us—one of Britain’s greatest sons—your name will never die.”