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Slatin Pasha had got news from former friends that the fugitives and townspeople would gladly surrender, so the sooner the Sirdar marched in and took possession the better. True, the Khalifa with several hundreds of followers, or mayhap a thousand or more, was yet within the central part of Omdurman.
At the end of October the Mahdi, accompanied by a far more numerous force than Gordon thought he could raise, described by Slatin as countless, pitched his camp a few miles south of Omdurman. On 8th November his arrival was celebrated by a direct attack on the lines south of Khartoum.
When the negotiations were over, Suleiman retired with 1500 men to Shaka, where we shall hear of him again, and Gordon took into his pay the other half of the brigand force. In this remarkable manner did he stave off the greatest peril which had yet threatened him in the Soudan. The following corroborative account of this incident was furnished long afterwards by Slatin Pasha:
Imagination, long supported, is brushed aside by stern reality. Henceforward Gordon's perils were unrecorded. I would select one episode only from the Journals as an example of the peculiarity and the sternness of Charles Gordon's character his behaviour towards Slatin. This Austrian officer had been Governor of Darfur with the rank in the Egyptian service of Bey.
For several months he was heavily chained and fed on a daily handful of uncooked doura, such as is given to horses and mules. Tidings of these things were carried to Gordon. 'Slatin, he observes icily, 'is still in chains. He never doubted the righteousness of the course he had adopted, never for an instant. But few will deny that there were strong arguments on both sides.
By birth an Austrian and a Catholic, Slatin, in the last desperate stages of his resistance, had adopted the expedient of announcing his conversion to Mohammedanism, in order to win the confidence of his native troops.
Ten years elapsed after the eventful morning when Slatin pronounced over his remains the appropriate epitaph, "A brave soldier who fell at his post; happy is he to have fallen; his sufferings are over!" before the exact manner of Gordon's death was known, and some even clung to the chance that after all he might have escaped to the Equator, and indeed it was not till long after the expedition had returned that the remarkable details of his single-handed defence of Khartoum became known.
Abdullah, who was ignorant, illiterate and cruel, far beyond his dead master "the cruellest man on earth," Slatin Pasha dubbed him, by his exactions and treacheries soon overreached himself. Events were hastening to the overthrow of Mahdism. Sheiks and tribes fell away from the Khalifa and returned to the fold of orthodox Mohammedanism.
W. E. G. Forbes, Lieut.-Col. M. Q. Jones, Lieut.-Col. F. R. South, Lieut.-Col. R. H. Martin, Lieut.-Col. W. G. C. Wyndham, and Commander C. R. Keppel, R. N. Colonel F. R. Wingate was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, and a like dignity was conferred upon Colonel R. Slatin Pasha. Distinguished Service Orders were granted to the Rev. R. Brindle, Lieut.-Col.
He had read the truth in all the papers captured on Stewart's steamer, and he knew that Gordon's resources were nearly spent. Even some of the messages Gordon sent out by spies for Lord Wolseley's information fell into his hands, and on one of these Slatin says it was written: "Can hold Khartoum at the outside till the end of January."
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