All that day the town had been perturbed by rumours of a great battle fought at Kassassin in the desert east of Ismailia.
Messengers had raced ceaselessly through the streets, shouting tidings of victory and tidings of disaster.

There had been a charge by moonlight of General Drury-Lowe's Cavalry Brigade, which had rolled up Arabi's left flank and captured his guns.

It was rumoured that an English general had been killed, that the York and Lancaster Regiment had been cut up.

London was uneasy, and at eleven o'clock at night a great crowd of people had gathered beneath the gas-lamps in Pall Mall, watching with pale upturned faces the lighted blinds of the War Office.

The crowd was silent and impressively still.