[Frontispiece: He would lead the troops onwards with the little cane henearly always carried. ]

THE CHILDREN'S HEROES SERIES

THE STORY OF

GENERAL GORDON

BY

JEANIE LANG

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD. , 35 and 36 Paternoster Row, E. C. 

AND EDINBURGH

1906

TO

ARCHIE AND BERTIE DICKSON

AND ALL BOYS WHO ARE GOING

TO SERVE THEIR KING

ON LAND OR SEA

PREFACE

DEAR ARCHIE AND BERTIE, When boys read the old fairy tales, and the stories of King Arthur'sRound Table, and the Knights of the Faerie Queen, they sometimes wondersadly why the knights that they see are not like those of the oldendays. 

Knights now are often stout old gentlemen who never rode horses or hadlances in their hands, but who made much money in the City, and whohave no more furious monsters near them than their own motor-cars. 

Only a very few knights are like what your own grandfather was. 

"I wish I had lived long ago, " say some of the boys. "Then I mighthave killed dragons, and fought for my Queen, and sought for the HolyGrail. Nobody does those things now. Though I can be a soldier andfight for the King, that is a quite different thing. "

But if the boys think this, it is because they do not quite understand. 

Even now there live knights as pure as Sir Galahad, as brave and trueas St. George. They may not be what the world calls "knights"; yetthey are fighting against all that is not good, and true, and honest, and clean, just as bravely as the knights fought in days of old. 

And it is of one of those heroes, who sought all his life to find whatwas holy, who fought all his life against evil, and who died servinghis God, his country, and his Queen, that I want to tell you now. 

Your friend, JEANIE LANG. 

CONTENTS

Chapter

 I. "Charlie Gordon" II. Gordon's First Battles III. "Chinese Gordon" IV. "The Kernel" V. Gordon and the Slavers VI. Khartoum

ILLUSTRATIONS

He would lead the troops onwards with the little cane he nearly always carried . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

The Corporal was butted downstairs

The shell struck the ground five yards in front of him

With his own hands he dragged him from the ranks

Gordon appeared with soap, towels, a brush, a sponge, and a fresh suit of clothes

In the Soudan buying two children for a basketful of dhoora

There rode into their camp Gordon Pasha

Looking for the help that never came

THE STORY OF

GENERAL GORDON

CHAPTER I

"CHARLIE GORDON"

Sixty years ago, at Woolwich, the town on the Thames where the gunnersof our army are trained, there lived a mischievous, curly-haired, blue-eyed boy, whose name was Charlie Gordon. 

The Gordons were a Scotch family, and Charlie came of a race ofsoldiers. His great-grandfather had fought for King George, and wastaken prisoner at the battle of Prestonpans, when many other Gordonswere fighting for Prince Charlie. His grandfather had served bravelyin different regiments and in many lands. His father was yet anothergallant soldier, who thought that there was no life so good as thesoldier's life, and nothing so fine as to serve in the British army. Of him it is said that he was "kind-hearted, generous, cheerful, fullof humour, always just, living by the code of honour, " and "greatlybeloved. " His wife belonged to a family of great merchant adventurersand explorers, the Enderbys, whose ships had done many daring things onfar seas. 

Charlie Gordon's mother was one of the people who never lose theirtempers, who always make the best of everything, and who are alwaysthinking of how to help others and never of themselves. 

So little Charlie came of brave and good people, and when he was a verylittle boy he must have heard much of his soldier uncles and cousinsand his soldier brother, and must even have seen the swinging kilts andheard the pipes of the gallant regiment that is known as the GordonHighlanders. 

Charles George Gordon was born at Woolwich on the 28th January 1833, but while he was still a little child his father, General Gordon, wentto hold a command in Corfu, an island off the coast of Turkey, at themouth of the Adriatic Sea. The Duke of Cambridge long afterwards spokeof the bright little boy who used to be in the room next his in thathouse in Corfu, but we know little of Charles Gordon until he was tenyears old. His father was then given an important post at Woolwich, and he and his family returned to England. 

Then began merry days for little Charlie. 

In long after years he wrote to one of his nieces about the greatbuilding at Woolwich where firearms for the British army are made andstored: "You never, any of you, made a proper use of the Arsenalworkmen, as we did. They used to neglect their work for our orders, and turned out some splendid squirts--articles that would wet youthrough in a minute. As for the cross-bows they made, they were grandwith screws. "

There were five boys and six girls in the Gordon family. Charlie wasthe fourth son, and two of his elder brothers were soldiers while hewas still quite a little lad. 

It was in his holidays that the Arsenal was his playground, for on thereturn from Corfu he was sent to school at Taunton, where you may stillsee his initials, "C. G. G. ", carved deep on the desk he used. 

At school he did not seem to be specially clever. He was not fond oflessons, but he drew very well, and made first-rate maps. He wasalways brimful of high spirits and mischief, and ready for any sort ofsport, and the people of Woolwich must have sighed when Charlie camehome for his holidays. 

One time when he came he found that his father's house was overrun withmice. This was too good a chance to miss. He and one of his brotherscaught all the mice they could, carried them to the house of thecommandant of the garrison, which was opposite to theirs, gently openedthe door, and let the mice loose in their new home. 

Once, with the screw-firing cross-bows that the workmen at the Arsenalhad made for them, the wild Gordon boys broke twenty-seven panes ofglass in one of the large warehouses of the Arsenal. A captain who wasin the room narrowly escaped being shot, one of the screws passingclose to his head and fixing itself into the wall as if it had beenplaced there by a screwdriver. 

Freddy, the youngest of the five boys, had an anxious, if merry, timewhen his big brothers came back from school. With them he would ringthe doorbells of houses till the angry servants of Woolwich seemed forever to be opening doors to invisible ringers. Often, too, littleFreddy would be pushed into a house, the bell rung by his mischievousbrothers, and the door held, so that Freddy alone had to face thesurprised people inside. 

But the wildest of their tricks was one that they played on the cadetsat Woolwich--the big boys who were being trained to be officers ofartillery. "The Pussies" was the name they went by, and it was on themost grown up of the Pussies that they directed their mischief. Thesenior class of cadets was then stationed in the Royal Arsenal, infront of which were earthworks on which they learned how to defend andfortify places in time of war. All the ins and outs of theseearthworks were known to Charlie Gordon and his brothers. One darknight, when a colonel was lecturing to the cadets, a crash as of afearful explosion was heard. The cadets, thinking that every pane ofglass in the lecture hall was broken, rushed out like bees from a hive. They soon saw that the terrific noise had been made by round shot beingthrown at the windows, and well they knew that Charlie Gordon was sureto be at the bottom of the trick. But the night was dark, and Charlieknew every passage of the earthworks better than any big cadet there. Although there were many big boys as hounds and only two little boys ashares, the Gordons easily escaped from the angry cadets. For some timeafterwards they carefully kept away from the Arsenal, for they knewthat if the "Pussies" should catch them they need expect no mercy. 

From Taunton Charlie went for one year to be coached for the army at aschool at Shooters Hill. From there, when he was not quite sixteen, hepassed into the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. 

As a cadet, Charlie Gordon was no more of a book-worm than he had beenas a schoolboy. There was no piece of mischief, no wild prank, thatthat boy with the curly fair hair and merry blue eyes did not have ashare in. But if he fairly shared the fun, Charlie would sometimestake more than his fair share of blame or punishment. He was neverafraid to own up, and he was always ready to bear his friends'punishment as well as his own for scrapes they had got into together. Of course he got into scrapes. There was never a boy that was full ofwild spirits who did not. But Charlie Gordon never got into a scrapefor any thoughtless mischief and naughtiness. He never did anythingmean, never anything that was not straight, and true, and honourable. 

He had been at the Academy for some time, and had earned manygood-conduct badges, when complaint was made of the noise and roughnesswith which the cadets rushed down the narrow staircase from theirdining-room. One of the senior cadets, a corporal, was stationed atthe head of this staircase, his arms outstretched, to prevent the usualwild rush past. The sight of this severe little officer was too greata temptation for Charlie Gordon. Down went his head, forward herushed, and the corporal was butted not only downstairs, but rightthrough the glass door beyond. The corporal's body escaped unhurt, buthis feelings did not, and Charlie was placed under arrest, and verynearly expelled from the College. 

[Illustration: The Corporal was butted downstairs]

When his term at Woolwich was nearly over, a great deal of bullying wasfound to be going on, and the new boys were questioned about it by theofficers in charge. One new boy said that Charlie Gordon had hit himon the head with a clothes-brush--"not a severe blow, " he had to own. But Charlie's bear-fighting had this time a hard punishment, for he wasput back six months for his commission. 

Until then he had meant to be an officer of Artillery--a "gunner, " asthey are called. Now he knew that he would always be six months behindhis gunner friends, and so decided to work instead for the Engineers, and get his commission as a "sapper. "

At college, as well as at school, his map-drawing was very good, andhis mother was very proud of what he did. One day he found her showingsome visitors a map he had made. His hatred of being praised for whathe thought he did not deserve, and his hot temper, sprang out together, and he tore up the map and threw it in the grate. 

But almost at once he was sorry for his rudeness and unkindness, andafterwards he carefully pasted the torn pieces of the map together forhis mother. 

"How my mother loved me!" he wrote of her long years afterwards. 

His hot temper was sometimes shown to his officers. He would bear morethan his share of blame when he felt that he deserved it, but when hefelt that blame was undeserved, his temper would flash out in a suddenstorm. 

One of his superiors at Woolwich once said, scolding him, --"You willnever make an officer. "

Charlie's honour was touched. His temper blazed out, and he tore offhis epaulettes and threw them at the officer's feet. 

He always hated his examinations, yet he never failed to pass them. 

When he was fifty years old, he wrote to his sister, --"I had a fearfuldream last night: I was back at the Academy, and had to pass anexamination! I was wide awake enough to know I had forgotten all I hadever learnt, and it was truly some time ere I could collect myself andrealise I was a general, so completely had I become a cadet again. What misery those examinations were!"

When he was nineteen, Charlie Gordon became Sub-Lieutenant CharlesGordon of the Royal Engineers. 

From Woolwich he went to Chatham, the headquarters of the RoyalEngineers, to have some special training as an Engineer officer. 

There he found his cleverness at map-drawing a great help in his work, and for nearly two years he worked hard at all that an officer ofEngineers must know, and soon he was looked on as a very promisingyoung officer. 

In February 1854, he gained the rank of full lieutenant, and was sentto Pembroke Dock to help with the new fortifications and batteries thatwere being made there. 

Whatever Charlie Gordon did, he did with all his might, and he was nowas keen on making plans and building fortifications, as he had oncebeen in planning and playing mischievous tricks. 

When he returned to Pembroke thirty years later, an old ferryman thereremembered him. 

"Are you the gent who used to walk across the stream right through thewater?" he asked. 

And all through his life no stream was too strong for Gordon to face. 

Gordon had not been long at Pembroke when a great war broke out betweenRussia on one side, and England, France, and Turkey on the other. Itwas fought in a part of Russia called the Crimea, and is known as theCrimean War. 

The two elder Gordons, Henry and Enderby, were out there with theirbatteries, and, like every other keen young soldier, Charlie Gordon waswild to go. 

After a few months at Pembroke, orders came for him to go to Corfu. Hesuspected his father of having managed to get him sent there to be outof harm's way. 

"It is a great shame of you, " he wrote. But very shortly afterwardscame fresh orders, telling him to go to the Crimea without delay. 

A general whom he had told how much he longed to go where the fightingwas, had had the orders changed. 

On the 4th December 1854 his orders came to Pembroke. Two days laterhe reported himself at the War Office in London, and on the evening ofthe same day he was at Portsmouth, ready to sail. At first it wasintended that he should go out in a collier, but that arrangement wasaltered. Back he came to London, and went from there to France. 

At Marseilles he got a ship to Constantinople, and just as fearlesslyand as happily as he had ever gone on one of his mischievousexpeditions as a little boy, Charlie Gordon went off to face hardships, and dangers, and death in the Crimea, and to learn his first lessons inwar. 

CHAPTER II

GORDON'S FIRST BATTLES

The Crimean War had been going on for several months when, on NewYear's Day 1855, Gordon reached Balaclava. 

The months had been dreary ones for the English soldiers, for, throughbad management in England, they had had to face a bitter Russianwinter, and go through much hard fighting, without proper food, withoutwarm clothing, and with no proper shelter. 

Night after night, and day after day, in pitilessly falling snow, or indrenching rain, clad in uniforms that had become mere rags, cold andhungry, tired and wet, the English soldiers had to line the trenchesbefore Sebastopol. 

These trenches were deep ditches, with the earth thrown up to protectthe men who fired from them, and in them the men often had to standhour after hour, knee deep in mud, and in cold that froze the blood intheir veins. 

Illness broke out in the camp, and many men died from cholera. Manyhad no better bed than leaves spread on stones in the open could givethem. 

Some of those who had tents, and used little charcoal fires to warmthem, were killed by the fumes of charcoal. 

A "Black Winter" it was called, and the Black Winter was not over whenGordon arrived. He had been sent out in charge of 320 huts, which hadfollowed him in the collier from Portsmouth, so that now, at least, some of the men were better sheltered than they had been before. Butthey were still half-starved, and in very low spirits. Officers andmen had constantly to go foraging for food, or else to go hungry, andmen died every day of the bitter cold. And all the time the guns ofthe Russians were never idle. 

It was not a very gay beginning for a young officer's active service, but Gordon, like his mother, had a way of making the best of things. Even when, as he wrote, the ink was frozen, and he broke the nib of hispen as he dipped it, "There are really no hardships for the officers, "he wrote home; "the men are the sufferers. "

Before he had been a month out, Gordon was put on duty in the trenchesbefore Sebastopol, a great fortified town by the sea. 

On the night of 14th February, with eight men with picks and shovels, and five double sentries, he was sent to make a connection between theFrench and English outposts by means of rifle-pits. It was a pitchblack night, and as yet Gordon did not know the trenches as well as hehad known the earthworks at Woolwich Arsenal. He led his men, and, missing his way, nearly walked into the town filled with Russians. Turning back, they crept up the trenches to some caves which theEnglish should have held, but found no sentries there. Taking one manwith him, Gordon explored the caves. He feared that the Russians, finding them undefended, might have taken possession of them whendarkness fell, but he found them empty. He then posted two sentries onthe hill above the caves, and went back to post two others down below. No sooner did he and these two appear below than "Bang! bang!" went tworifles, and the bullets ripped up the ground at Gordon's feet. Offrushed the two men who were with him, and off scampered the eightsappers, thinking that the whole Russian army was at their heels. Butall that had really happened was that the sentries on the hill above, seeing Gordon and his men coming stealthily out of the caves in thedarkness, had taken them for Russians, and fired straight at them. Themischief did not end there. A Russian picket was stationed only 150yards away, and the sound of the shots made them also send a shower ofbullets, one of which hit a man on the breast, passed through hiscoats, grazed his ribs, and passed out again without hurting him. Butno serious harm was done, and by working all night Gordon and his mencarried out their orders. 

It was not long before Gordon learned so thoroughly all the ins andouts of the trenches that the darkest night made no difference to him. "Come with me after dark, and I will show you over the trenches, " hesaid to a friend who had been away on sick leave, and who complained tohim that he could not find his way about. "He drew me a very clearsketch of the lines, " writes his friend, Sir Charles Stavely, "explained every nook and corner, and took me along outside our mostadvanced trench, the bouquets (volleys of small shells fired frommortars) and other missiles flying about us in, to me, a veryunpleasant manner, he taking the matter remarkably coolly. "

Before many weeks were past, Gordon not only knew the trenches as wellas any other officer or man there, but he knew more of the enemy'smovements than did any other officer, old or young. He had "a specialaptitude for war, " says one general. "We used to send him to find outwhat new move the Russians were making. "

Shortly after his adventure in the caves, Gordon had another narrowescape. A bullet fired at him from one of the Russian rifle-pits, 180yards away, passed within an inch of his head. "It passed an inchabove my nut into a bank I was passing, " wrote Gordon, who had notforgotten his school-boy slang. But the only other remark he makesabout his escape in his letter home is, "They (the Russians) are verygood marksmen; their bullet is large and pointed. "

Three months later, one of his brothers wrote home--"Charlie has had amiraculous escape. The day before yesterday he saw the smoke from anembrasure on his left and heard a shell coming, but did not see it. Itstruck the ground five yards in front of him, and burst, not touchinghim. If it had not burst, it would have taken his head off. "

[Illustration: The shell struck the ground five yards in front of him]

The soldiers at Sebastopol were not long in learning that amongst theirofficers there was one slight, wiry young lieutenant of sappers, withcurly hair and keen blue eyes, who was like the man in the fairy tale, and did not know how to shiver and shake. 

One day as Gordon was going the round of the trenches he heard acorporal and a sapper having hot words. He stopped and asked what thequarrel was about, and was told that the men were putting fresh gabions(baskets full of earth behind which they sheltered from the fire of theenemy's guns) in the battery. The corporal had ordered the sapper tostand up on a parapet where the fire from the guns would hail upon him, while he himself, in safety down below, handed the baskets up to him. In one moment Gordon had jumped up on to the parapet, and ordered thecorporal to stand beside him while the sapper handed up baskets tothem. The Russian bullets pattered around them as they worked, butthey finished their work in safety. When it was done, Gordon turned tothe corporal and said: "Never order a man to do anything that you areafraid to do yourself. "

On 6th June there was a great duel between the guns of the Russians andthose of their besiegers. A stone from a round shot struck Gordon, andstunned him for some time, and he was reported "Wounded" by thesurgeon, greatly to his disgust. All day and all night, and until fouro'clock next day, the firing went on. At four o'clock on the secondday the English and their allies began to fire from new batteries. Athousand guns kept up a steady, terrible fire of shells, and, protectedby the fire, the French dashed forward and seized one of the Russians'most important positions. Attacking and being driven back, attackingagain and gaining some ground, once more attacking and losing what theyhad gained, leaving men lying dead and dying where the fight had beenfiercest, so the weary days and nights dragged past. 

"Charlie is all right, " his brother wrote home, "and has escaped amidsta terrific shower of grape and shells of every description. . . . Heis now fast asleep in his tent, having been in the trenches from twoo'clock yesterday morning during the cannonade until seven last night, and again from 12-30 this morning until noon. "

Both sides agreed to stop fighting for a few days after this, in orderto bury the dead. 

The whole ground before Sebastopol was, Gordon wrote, "one greatgraveyard of men, freshly made mounds of dark earth covering English, French, and Russians. "

From this time until September the war dragged on. It was a dull anddreary time, and as September drew near Gordon thought of happy days inEngland, with the scent of autumn leaves, and the whir of a covey ofbirds rising from the stubble, and he longed for partridge-shooting. But they shot men, not birds, in the Crimea. "The Russians are brave, "he wrote, "certainly inferior to none; their work is stupendous, theirshell practice is beautiful. " Gordon was never one to grudge praise tohis enemies. 

Every day men died of disease, or were killed or wounded. On 31stAugust 1855, Gordon wrote that "Captain Wolseley (90th Regiment), anassistant engineer, has been wounded by a stone. " In spite of stonesand shells, Captain Wolseley fought many brave fights, and yearsafterwards became Lord Wolseley, Commander-in-Chief of the BritishArmy, a gallant soldier and a brilliant leader of men. 

On 8th September one of the chief holds of the Russians was stormed bythe French, who took it after a fierce fight and hoisted on it theirflag. This was the signal for the English to attack the great fort ofthe Redan. With a rush they got to the ditch between them and thefortress, put up their ladders, and entered it. For half-an-hour theyheld it nobly. Then enormous numbers of fresh Russian troops came tothe attack, and our men were driven out with terrible loss. At thesame time, at another point, the French were driven back. Nothing wasleft for the allied troops but to wait till morning. It was decidedthat when morning came the Highland soldiers must storm and take theRedan. But this the Russians gave them no chance to do. 

While Gordon was on duty in the trenches that night he heard a terrificexplosion. 

"At four next morning, " he writes, "I saw a splendid sight. The wholeof Sebastopol was in flames, and every now and then great explosionstook place, while the rising sun shining on the place had a mostbeautiful effect. The Russians were leaving the town by the bridge;all the three-deckers were sunk, the steamers alone remaining. Tonsand tons of powder must have been blown up. About eight o'clock I gotan order to commence a plan of the works, for which purpose I went tothe Redan, where a dreadful sight was presented. The dead were buriedin the ditch--the Russians with the English--Mr. Wright" (an Englishchaplain), "reading the burial service over them. "

The fires went on all day, and there were still some prowling Russiansin the town, so that it was not safe to enter it. 

When the allied forces did go in, they found many dreadful sights. Fora whole day and night 3000 wounded men had been untended, and a fourthof them were dead. The town was strewn with shot and shell; buildingswere wrecked, or burned down. 

"As to plunder, " wrote Gordon, "there is nothing but rubbish and fleas, the Russians having carried off everything else. "

For some time after the fall of Sebastopol, Gordon and his men werekept busy clearing roads, burning rubbish, counting captured guns, andtrying to make the town less unhealthy. 

He then went with the troops that attacked Kinburn, a town many milesfrom Sebastopol, but also on the shores of the Black Sea. When it wastaken, he returned to Sebastopol. 

For four months he was there, destroying forts, quays, storehouses, barracks, and dockyards; sometimes being fired on by the Russians fromacross the harbour; never idle, always putting his whole soul into allthat he did. 

His work was finished in February 1856, and in March peace was declaredbetween Russia and Britain. 

The name of Lieutenant Gordon was included by his general in a list ofofficers who had done gallant service in the war. 

By the French Government he was decorated with the Legion of Honour, areward not often given to so young a man. 

A little more than a year of hard training in war had turned CharlieGordon the boy into Gordon the soldier. 

In May 1856 Gordon was sent to Bessarabia, to help to arrange newfrontiers for Russia, Turkey, and Roumania. In 1857 he was sent to dothe same work in Armenia. 

The end of 1858 saw him on his way home to England, a seasoned soldier, and a few months later he was made a captain. 

CHAPTER III

"CHINESE GORDON"

For a year after his return from Armenia Gordon was at Chatham, asField-Work Instructor and Adjutant, teaching the future officers ofEngineers what he himself had learned in the trenches. 

While he was there, a war that had been going on for some years betweenBritain and China grew very serious. 

Gordon volunteered for service, but when he reached China, in September1860, the war was nearly at an end. "I am rather late for theamusement, which won't vex mother, " he wrote. He found, however, thata number of Englishmen, some of them friends of his, were being kept asprisoners in Pekin by the Chinese. The English and their allies atonce marched to Pekin, and demanded that the prisoners should be givenup. 

The Chinese, scared at the sight of the armies and their big guns, opened the gates. But in the case of many of the prisoners, help hadcome too late. The Chinese had treated them most brutally, and manyhad died under torture. 

Nothing was left for the allied armies to do but to punish the Chinesefor their cruelty, and especially to punish the Emperor for havingallowed such vile things to go on in his own great city. 

The Emperor lived in a palace so gorgeous and so beautiful that itmight have come out of the Arabian Nights. This palace the Englishgeneral gave orders to his soldiers to pillage and to destroy. Fourmillions of money could not have replaced what was destroyed then. Thesoldiers grew reckless as they went on, and wild for plunder. Quantities of gold ornaments were burned for brass. The throne room, lined with ebony, was smashed up and burned. Carved ivory and coralscreens, magnificent china, gorgeous silks, huge mirrors, and manypriceless things were burned or destroyed, as a gardener burns up heapsof dead leaves and garden rubbish. 

Treasures of every kind, and thousands and thousands of pounds' worthof exquisite jewels were looted by common soldiers. Often the men hadno idea of the value of the things they had taken. One of them sold astring of pearls for 16s. To an officer, who sold it next day for £500. From one of the plunderers Gordon bought the Royal Throne, a gorgeousseat, supported by the Imperial Dragon's claws, and with cushions ofImperial yellow silk. You may see it if you go some day to theheadquarters of the Royal Engineers at Chatham, and you will be toldthat it was given to his corps by General Gordon. 

After the sack of the Summer Palace Gordon had a very busy time, providing quarters for the English troops, helping to distribute themoney collected for the Chinese who had suffered from the war, anddoing surveying and exploring work. On horseback he and a comradeexplored many places which no European had visited before, and manywere their adventures. 

But it was in work greater than this that "Chinese Gordon" was to winhis title. While Gordon was a little boy of ten, a Chinese villageschoolmaster, Hung-Tsue-Schuen, who came of a low half-gipsy race, hadtold the people of China that God had spoken to him, and told him thathe was to overthrow the Emperor and all those who governed China, andto become the ruler and protector of the Chinese people. 

Soon he had many followers, who not only obeyed him as their king, butwho prayed to him as their god. He called himself a "Wang, " or king, and his followers called him their "Heavenly King. " He made rulers ofsome thousands of his followers--most of them his own relations--andthey also were named Wangs, or kings. They also had their own specialnames, "The Yellow Tiger, " "The One-Eyed Dog, " and "Cock-Eye" wereamongst these. Twenty thousand of his own clansmen, many of themsimple country people, who believed all that he told them, joined him. There also joined him fierce pirates from the coast, robbers from thehills, murderous members of secret societies, and almost every man inChina who had, or fancied he had, some wrong to be put right. 

His army rapidly grew into hundreds of thousands. 

When this host of savage-looking men, with their long lank hair, theirgaudy clothes and many-coloured banners, their cutlasses and longknives, marched through the land, plundering, burning, and murdering, the hard-working, harmless little Chinamen, with their smooth faces andneat pigtails, fled before them in terror. 

The Tae-Pings, as they came to be called, robbed them, slew them, burned their houses and their rice fields, and took their littlechildren away from them. They flayed people alive; they pounded themto death. Ruin and death were left behind them as they marched on. Those who escaped were left to starvation. In some places so terriblewas the hunger of the poor people that they became cannibals, for lackof any other food. 

In one city which they destroyed, out of 20, 000 people not 100 escaped. 

"We killed them all to the infant in arms; we left not a root to sproutfrom; and the bodies of the slain we cast into the Yangtse, "--soboasted the rebels. 

A march of nearly 700 miles brought this great, murdering, plunderingarmy to Nanking, a city which the Wangs took, and made their capital. The frightened peasants were driven before them down to the coast, andtook refuge in the towns there. Many of them had crowded into the portof Shanghai, and round Shanghai came the robber army. They wanted moremoney, more arms, and more ammunition, and they knew they could findplenty of supplies there. So likely did it seem that they would takethe port, that the Chinese Government asked England and France to helpto drive them away. 

In May 1862 Gordon was one of the English officers who helped to dothis. For thirty miles round Shanghai, the rebels, who were thefiercest of fighters, were driven back. In his official despatchGordon's general wrote of him:--"Captain Gordon was of the greatest useto me. " But he also said that Gordon often made him very anxiousbecause of the daring way in which he would go dangerously near theenemy's lines to gain information. Once when he was out in a boat withthe general, reconnoitring a town they meant to attack, Gordon beggedto be put ashore so that he might see better what defences the enemyhad. 

To the general's horror, Gordon went nearer and nearer the town, byrushes from one shelter to another. At length he sheltered behind alittle pagoda, and stood there quietly sketching and making notes. From the walls the rebels kept on firing at him, and a party of themcame stealing round to cut him off, and kill him before he could runback to the boat. The general shouted himself hoarse, but Gordoncalmly finished his sketch, and got back to the boat just in time. 

The Tae-Pings used to drag along with them many little boys whosefathers and mothers they had killed, and whom they meant to bring up asrebels. After the fights between the English troops and the Tae-Pings, swarms of those little homeless creatures were always found. 

Gordon writes: "I saved one small creature who had fallen into theditch in trying to escape, for which he rewarded me by destroying mycoat with his muddy paws in clinging to me. "

In December 1862 Gordon, for his good service in China, was raised tothe rank of major. 

Very soon afterwards the Chinese Government asked the EnglishGovernment to give them an English officer to lead the Chinese armythat was to fight with, and to conquer, the Tae-Ping rebels. 

Already the Chinese soldiers had been commanded by men who spokeEnglish. One of these, an American adventurer, named Burgevine, wasready to dare anything for power and money. 

To his leadership flocked scoundrels of every nation, hoping to enrichthemselves by plundering the rebels. 

Before long, Governor Li Hung Chang found that Burgevine was not to betrusted, and the command was taken from him. 

It was then that the Chinese Government asked England to give them aleader for their untrained army of Chinese and of adventurers gatheredfrom all lands. This collection of rag, tag, and bobtail had beennamed, to encourage it, and before it had done anything to deserve thename, the "Chun Chen Chün, " or the Ever-Victorious Army. 

But "The Almost Always Beaten Army" would have been a much truer namefor it, and the victorious Tae-Pings scornfully laughed at it. 

The English general in China had no doubt who was the best man for thepost. 

He named Major Charles Gordon, and on 25th March 1863 Gordon tookcommand, and was given the title of Mandarin by the Chinese. 

He knew that the idea of serving under any other monarch than his ownQueen would be a sorrow to his father. He wrote home begging hisfather and mother not to be vexed, and telling them how deeply he hadthought before he accepted the command. 

By taking the command, he said, he believed he could help to put an endto the sufferings of the poor people of China. Were he not to havetaken it, he feared that the rebels might go on for years spreadingmisery over the land. "I keep your likeness before me, " wrote thisyoung Major who had been trusted with so great a thing to do, to themother whom he loved so much. "I can assure you and my father I willnot be rash. . . . I really do think I am doing a good service inputting down this rebellion. "

"I hope you do not think that I have got a magnificent army, " he wroteto a soldier friend. "You never did see such a rabble as it was; andalthough I think I have improved it, it is still sadly wanting. Now, both men and officers, although ragged and perhaps slightlydisreputable, are in capital order and well disposed. "

Before his arrival, the soldiers had had no regular pay. They wereallowed to "loot, " or plunder, the towns they took, and for each towntaken they were paid so much. 

At once Gordon began to get his ragamuffin army into shape. 

He arranged that the soldiers were to get their pay regularly, but wereto have no extra pay for the places which they took. Any man caughtplundering a town that was taken was to be shot. He replaced theadventurers of all nations, many of them drunken rogues, who were thearmy's officers, by English officers lent by the British Government. He drilled his men well. He practised them in attacking fortifiedplaces, and he formed a little fleet of small steamers and Chinesegunboats. The chief of these was the _Hyson_, a little paddle steamerthat could move over the bed of a creek on its wheels when the waterwas too shallow to float it. 

The army, too, was given a uniform, at which not only the rebels butthe Chinese themselves at first mocked, calling the soldiers who woreit "Sham Foreign Devils. "

But soon so well had Gordon's army earned its name of "TheEver-Victorious Army, " that the mere sight of the uniform they worefrightened the rebels. 

In one month Gordon's army was an army and not a rabble, and the veryfirst battles that it fought were victories. 

With 3000 men he attacked a garrison of 10, 000 at Taitsan, and after adesperate fight the rebels were driven out. 

From Taitsan the victorious army went on to Quinsan, a large fortifiedcity, connected by a causeway with Soochow, the capital of the province. 

All round Quinsan the country was cut up in every direction with creeksand canals. But Gordon knew every creek and canal in that flat land. He knew more now than any other man, native or foreigner, where therewere swamps, where there were bridges, which canals were choked withweeds, and which were easily sailed up. He made up his mind that therebels in Quinsan must be cut off from those in Soochow. 

At dawn, one May morning, eighty boats, with their large white sailsspread out like the wings of big sea-birds, and with many-colouredflags flying from their rigging, were seen by the rebel garrison atQuinsan sailing up the canal towards the city. In the middle of thisfleet the plucky little _Hyson_, with Gordon on board, came paddlingalong. 

By noon they reached a barrier of stakes placed across the creek. These they pulled up, sailed to the shore, and landed their troopsclose to the rebel stockades. For a minute the Tae-Pings stood andstared, uncertain what to do, and then, in terror, ran before Gordon'sarmy. 

There had been many boats in the creek, but the rebels had sprung outof them and a left them to drift about with their sails up, so that itwas no easy work for the _Hyson_ to thread her way amongst them. Stillthe little boat steamed slowly and steadily on towards Soochow. Alongthe banks of the canal the rebels, in clusters, were marching towardssafety. On them the _Hyson_ opened fire, puffing and steaming afterthem, and battering them with shells and bullets. 

Like an angry little sheep-dog driving a mob of sheep, it drove therebels onwards. Many lay dead on the banks, or fell into the water andwere drowned. One hundred and fifty of them were taken as prisoners onboard the _Hyson_. 

When they were less than a mile from Soochow, as night was beginning tofall, Gordon decided to turn back and rejoin the rest of his forces. Some of the rebels, thinking that the _Hyson_ was gone for good, hadgot into their boats again, and were gaily sailing up the creek whenthey saw the steamer's red and green lights, and heard her whistle. 

The mere glare of the lights and hoot of the whistle seemed to throwthem into a panic. In the darkness the flying mobs of men along thecanal banks met other rebels coming to reinforce them, and in the wildconfusion that followed the guns of the _Hyson_ mowed them down. About10. 30 P. M. The crew of the _Hyson_ heard tremendous yells and cheerscoming from a village near Quinsan, where the rebels had made a stand. Gordon's gunboats were firing into the stone fort, and from it therecame a rattle and a sparkle of musketry like fireworks, and wild yellsand shouts from the rebels. The gunboats were about to give in and runaway when the little _Hyson_ came hooting out of the darkness. Gordon's army welcomed him with deafening cheers, and the rebels threwdown their arms and fled. The _Hyson_ steamed on up the creek towardsQuinsan, and in the darkness Gordon saw a huge crowd of men near a highbridge. It was too dark to see clearly, but the _Hyson_ blew herwhistle. At once from the huddled mass of rebels came yells of fear. It was the garrison of Quinsan, some seven or eight thousand, trying toescape to Soochow. In terror they fled in every direction--8000 menfleeing before thirty. The _Hyson_ fired as seldom as she could, buteven then, that day the rebels must have lost from three to fourthousand men, killed, drowned, and prisoners. All their arms also, they lost, and a great number of boats. 

Next morning at dawn, Gordon and his army took possession of Quinsan. They had fought almost from daybreak until daybreak. "The rebelscertainly never got such a licking before, " wrote Gordon. 

The Ever-Victorious Army was delighted with itself, and very proud ofits leader. But they were less well-pleased with Gordon when theyfound that instead of going on to a town where they could sell thethings they had managed to loot, they were to stay at Quinsan. 

They were so angry that they drew up a proclamation saying that unlessthey were allowed to go to a town they liked better, they would blowtheir officers to pieces with the big guns. Gordon felt sure that thenon-commissioned officers were at the bottom of the mischief. He madethem parade before him, and told them that if they did not at once tellhim the name of the man who had written the proclamation, he would haveone out of every five of them shot. At this they all groaned, to showwhat a monster they thought Gordon. One corporal groaned louder thanall the rest, and Gordon turned on him, his eyes blazing. So sure wasGordon that this was their leader that, with his own hands, he draggedhim from the ranks. 

[Illustration: With his own hands, he dragged him from the ranks]

"Shoot this fellow!" he said to two of his bodyguard. The soldiersfired, and the corporal fell dead. 

The other non-commissioned officers he sent into imprisonment for onehour. 

"If at the end of that time, " said he, "the men do not fall in at theirofficers' commands, and if I am not given the name of the writer ofthat proclamation, every fifth man of you shall be shot. "

At the end of the hour the men fell in, and the name of the writer ofthe proclamation was given to Gordon. The man had already beenpunished. It was the corporal who had groaned so loud an hour before. 

This was not the only case that Gordon had in his own army. More thanonce his officers were rebellious and troublesome. General Ching, aChinese general, was jealous of him. Ching one day made his men fireon 150 of Gordon's soldiers, and treated it as a joke when Gordon wasangry. At the beginning of the campaign Gordon had promised his menthat they should have their pay regularly instead of plundering theplaces they took. His own pay, and more, had gone to do this and tohelp the poor. And now Li Hung Chang, the Governor, said he could notpay the men; and no one but Gordon seemed to mind when Ching broke hispromise to prisoners who had been promised safety, and slew thembrutally. 

Disgusted with this want of honour and truth in the men with whom hehad to work, Gordon made up his mind to throw up his command. 

Just then, however, Burgevine, the adventurer, who had once led theEmperor's army, again became very powerful. He gathered together anumber of men as reckless as himself, and joined the rebels. Therebels made him a Wang, or King, and he offered so much money to thosewho would serve under him that crowds of Gordon's grumbling soldiersdeserted and joined Burgevine. 

Burgevine and his followers were a grand reinforcement for the rebelarmy, and things began to look serious. 

Gordon could not bear that the rebels should be allowed unchecked toswarm over China and plunder and slay innocent people. Instead ofresigning he once more led the Ever-Victorious Army, and led it tovictory. 

Soochow, "The City of Pagodas, " was besieged. There were twice as manysoldiers in the town as there were besiegers, and amongst them wereBurgevine and his men. In front of the city Gordon placed his guns, and after a short bombardment that did much damage to the walls, heordered his troops to advance. A terrific fire from the enemy drovethem back. Again Gordon's guns bombarded the city, and were pushedforward as far as possible. Then again the besiegers rushed in, butfound that the creek round the city was too wide for the bridge theycarried with them. But the officers plunged fearlessly into the waterand dashed across. Their men followed them, the Tae-Pings fled, andstockade after stockade was taken. Gordon himself, with a mere handfulof men, took three stockades and a stone fort. 

In this siege, as in many other fights, Gordon had himself to lead hisarmy. If an officer shrank back before the savage enemy, Gordon wouldtake him gently by the arm and lead him into the thickest of thebattle. He himself went unarmed, and would lead his troops onwardswith the little cane he nearly always carried. Where the fire washottest, there Gordon was always to be found, caring no more for thebullets that pattered round him than if they were hailstones. TheChinese soldiers came to look on the little cane as a magic wand. Gordon's "magic wand of victory, " they called it. 

During the siege he found men in his own army selling information tothe rebels. One young officer, more out of carelessness, it seemed, than from any bad wish, had written a letter giving information to theenemy. 

"I shall pass over your fault this time, " said Gordon, "if you showyour loyalty by leading the next forlorn hope. "

Gordon forgot this condition, but the young officer did not. He ledthe next assault, was shot in the mouth, and fell back and died in thearms of Gordon, who was by his side. 

A very wonderful old bridge, one of fifty-three arches, was destroyedduring the siege of Soochow, greatly to Gordon's regret. 

One evening he was sitting smoking a cigar on one of the damagedparapets of the bridge when two shots, accidentally fired by his ownmen, struck the stone on which he sat. At the second shot he got down, entered his boat, and started to row across the creek in order to findout by whom the shots had been fired. He was scarcely clear of thebridge than the part on which he had been seated fell crashing into thewater, nearly smashing his boat. 

The Chinese were more sure than ever that it must be magic that kepttheir general alive. Even when in a fierce fight he was severelywounded below the knee, they believed that his magic wand had saved hislife. 

From Soochow and the rebels he succeeded in rescuing Burgevine and hismiserable followers, even although he knew that Burgevine was ready forany deed of treachery towards him at any minute. 

One rebel stronghold after another fell before Gordon and his army, butmany and fierce were the fights that were fought before Soochow wastaken. 

The Wangs gave in at last. They agreed to surrender if Gordon promisedto spare the lives of the leading Wangs--six in all--to treat all theother rebels mercifully, and not to sack the city. To all theseconditions Gordon, Li Hung Chang, and General Ching gladly agreed, andthat night one of the gates was thrown open, and the Ever-VictoriousArmy took possession of Soochow. 

As a reward for their brave service, and to make up to them for theloot they were not to have, Gordon asked Li Hung Chang to give histroops two months' pay. Li refused, but presently gave them pay forone month, and Gordon marched his grumbling soldiers back to Quinsan, unable to trust them in a city where so much rich plunder was to be had. 

As Gordon left the city the Wangs, wearing no arms, and laughing andtalking, rode past him on their way to a banquet with Li Hung Chang. 

He never saw them alive again. 

He had some time to wait for the steamer that was to take him toQuinsan, so, having seen his army marching safely off, he rode roundthe walls of the city. In front of Li Hung Chang's quarters he saw agreat crowd, but so sure did he feel that Li would not break his solemnpromises that he did not feel uneasy. A little later a large number ofGeneral Ching's men entered the city, yelling loudly, and firing offtheir guns. This was so unlike the peaceful way that Gordon and Chinghad promised they should behave, that Gordon went and spoke to theirofficers. 

"This will never do, " he said. "There are still many rebels in thecity, and if our men get excited the rebels will get excited too, andthere will be fearful rioting. "

Just then General Ching appeared. He had fancied Gordon safelysteaming across the lake, and when he saw him he turned pale. 

In answer to Gordon's questions as to the meaning of the disturbance, he gave some silly answer, which it was easy to see was untrue. Gordonat once rode to the house of Nar Wang, the chief of the Wangs and thebravest of them, to find out for himself what was wrong. On his way hemet crowds of excited rebels, and a large band of Ching's soldiersladen with plunder. Nar Wang's house, he found, had been emptied ofeverything by the thieving soldiers. An uncle of Nar Wang beggedGordon to help him to take the women of Nar Wang's house to his ownhome, where they would be in safety. Unarmed as he was, Gordon did so, but when they got to the house of Nar Wang's uncle they found thecourtyard filled with thousands of rebel soldiers. The doors and gateswere shut at once, and Gordon was a prisoner. During the night moreand more rebels came to the house. They all said that Li Hung Changand Gordon had laid a trap for the Wangs and had taken them prisoners, but none knew exactly what had happened to them. It was well forGordon that they did not. Probably they would have tortured him in oneof the many hideous ways the Chinese knew so well, and then put him todeath. At length Gordon persuaded his captors to allow him to send amessenger to summon his own bodyguard, and also an order to some of hisother soldiers to seize Li Hung Chang, and not to let him go until theWangs had safely returned to their own homes. 

On the way the messenger met some of Ching's soldiers, who wounded himand tore up Gordon's message. The rebels then allowed Gordon to be hisown messenger; but on the way he met more of Ching's men, who seizedhim, because, they said, he was in company with rebels, and kept himprisoner for several hours. 

When at last he got away and reached his own men, he sent a body ofthem to protect the house of Nar Wang's uncle. General Ching arrivedjust then. Gordon, furious with him for the looting and bad behaviourof his men, fell on him in a perfect storm of rage, and Ching hurriedoff to the city. 

He sent an English officer to explain to Gordon what had happened, butthis officer said he did not know whether the Wangs were alive or dead. He said, however, that Nar Wang's son was in his boat, and that hewould be able to tell him. 

"My father has been killed, " said the boy. "He lies dead on the otherside of the creek. "

Gordon crossed the creek in a boat, and on the banks lay the deadbodies of the Wangs, headless, and frightfully gashed. Li Hung Changand General Ching had broken their promise, and Gordon's. The guestsof the banquet of Li Hung Chang had been cruelly murdered. 

Many were the excuses that the Chinese Governor had to offer; many werethe reasons that he gave for breaking faith so shamefully. 

But to none of his excuses or reasons would Gordon listen. It is saidthat, in furious anger, he sought Li Hung Chang, revolver in hand, thathe might shoot him like a dog. But Li wisely hid himself, and Gordonsought him in vain. He wrote to Li, telling him he must give up hispost as Governor, or Gordon and his army would attack all the placesthe Chinese held, retake them, and hand them back to the rebels. Hisanger and his shame were equally great. 

Li Hung Chang did the wisest thing that then could be done. He sentfor Halliday Macartney, a wise and brave English officer, and a friendof Gordon's, and asked him to go to Gordon and try and make peacebetween them. Macartney at once got a native boat with several rowers, and started for Quinsan. It was the middle of the night when hearrived, and Gordon was in bed. Very soon, however, he sent Macartneya message, asking him to come and see him in his room. Macartney wentupstairs and found Gordon sitting on his bedstead in a badly lightedroom. When Gordon saw him, he stooped down, drew something from underhis bed, and held it up. 

"Do you see that? Do you see that?" he asked. 

Macartney stared in horror, scarcely able, in the dim light, to seewhat it was. 

"It is the head of Nar Wang, foully murdered!" said Gordon, and sobbedmost bitterly. 

Halliday Macartney found it impossible then to get Gordon to forgive Lifor his treachery. For two months Gordon remained in quarters, whileinquiries, made at his demand, were being made about the death of theWangs. 

During this time the Chinese Government gave Gordon a medal that onlythe bravest soldiers ever received, to show how highly they valued hisservices as general. The Emperor also sent him a gift of 10, 000 taels(then about £3000 of our money) and many other costly gifts. When thetreasure-bearers appeared in Gordon's quarters, bearing bowls full ofgold on their heads, as if they had walked straight out of the Arabiannights, Gordon, believing the Emperor meant to bribe him to say no moreabout the murder of the Wangs, was in a white-heat of fury. With his"magic wand" he fell on the treasure-bearers, and flogged the amazedand terrified men out of his sight. 

Although the Government gave Gordon a medal for the way in which he hadfought, it was Li Hung Chang who took all the credit for the taking ofSoochow. 

He published a report telling how the army under him had taken it. Butwhile Gordon was under a daily fire of bullets, and daily ran a hundredrisks of losing his life, the wily Li, who sounded so brave on paper, was safely sitting in Shanghai, miles away from the besieged city. 

Gordon had much cause for anger. There seemed every reason why heshould not forgive Li, and why he should leave China and its people tothe mercy of the rebels. 

But Gordon had learned what it means to say "Forgive us ourtrespasses. " And not only that, but he had taken the sorrows of theunhappy people of China into his heart. Whatever their rulers mightdo, he felt he could not desert them. He must free them from thecruelties of their oppressors, the Tae-Pings, before he went home tohis own land. 

In February 1864 Gordon again took command. From then until 11th Mayhe was kept constantly fighting, and steadily winning power for theEmperor of China. 

On 10th May Gordon wrote to his mother: "I shall leave China as poor asI entered it, but with the knowledge that through my weakinstrumentality upwards of eighty to one hundred thousand lives havebeen spared. I want no further satisfaction than this. "

On 11th May Gordon took Chanchufu, the last great rebel stronghold, andthe rebellion was at an end. "The Heavenly King" killed his wives andhimself in his palace at Nankin, and the other rebel chiefs werebeheaded. 

Before Gordon gave up his command, the Chinese Government again offeredhim a large sum of money, but again he refused it. But he could notwell refuse the honour of being made a Ti-Tu, or Field-Marshal, in theChinese Army, nor the almost greater honour of being given the YellowJacket. To us the giving of a yellow jacket sounds a foolish thing, but to a Chinaman the Yellow Jacket, and peacock's feathers that gowith it, are an even greater honour than to an Englishman is that plainlittle cross that is called "The Victoria Cross, " and which is givenfor valour. Gordon accepted the yellow jacket, as well as sixmagnificent mandarin dresses, such as were worn by a Ti-Tu. "Some ofthe buttons on the mandarin hats are worth £30 or £40, " he wrote. Aheavy gold medal was struck in his honour and given to him by theEmpress Regent. It was one of the few belongings he had for whichGordon really cared a great deal, and presently you will hear how hegave even that up for the sake of other people. 

The Chinese Government told the British Government that Gordon wouldreceive no rewards from the Chinese for the great things he had donefor their country, and asked that his own Queen Victoria would give himsome reward that he would accept. This was done, and Major Gordon wasmade a Lieutenant-Colonel and a Companion of the Bath. 

Not only in China was he a hero, but in England also. Gordon had savedChina from an army of conquering robbers, "first"--it was written inthe _Times_--"by the power of his arms, and afterwards, still morerapidly, by the terror of his name. "

Li Hung Chang was ready to do anything that the hero wished, and so, before he said good-bye to his army, Gordon saw that his officers andmen were handsomely rewarded. 

It was not wonderful that his army had learned to love him, for eventhe rebels who feared his name loved him too. They knew that he wasalways true and brave, honourable and merciful. 

Of him one of the rebels wrote: "Often have I seen the deadly musketstruck from the hand of a dastardly Englishman (tempted by love of lootto join our ranks) when he attempted from his place of safety to killGordon, who ever rashly exposed himself. This has been the act of achief--yea, of the Shield King himself. "

All England was ready to give "Chinese Gordon" a magnificent welcomewhen he came home. Invitations from the greatest in the land wereshowered upon him. 

But when, early in 1865, he returned, he refused to be made a hero of. 

"I only did my duty, " he said, and grew quite shy and ashamed whenpeople praised and admired him. He would accept no invitations, and itwas only a very few people who were lucky enough to hear him fight hisbattles over again. Sometimes in the evening as he sat in thefire-light, in his father's house at Southampton, he would tell hiseager listeners the wonderful tale of his battles and adventures in thefar-off land of pagodas. 

And to them not the least wonderful part of what they listened to wasthis, that the hero who was known all over the world as "ChineseGordon" was one who took no credit for any of the great things he haddone, and who was still as simple and modest as a little child. 

CHAPTER IV

THE "KERNEL"

Had you lived thirty-five or forty years ago at Gravesend, a dirty, smoky town on the Thames near London, you might have read chalked up ondoors and on hoardings in boyish handwriting, these words--

"GOD BLESS THE KERNEL. "

And had you asked any of the ragged little lads that you met, who was"The Kernel, " their faces would have lit up at once, while they toldyou that their "Kernel" was the best and bravest soldier in the world, and that his name was Colonel Gordon. 

For six years after he left China, Gordon was Commanding Royal Engineerat Gravesend, and these years, he said, were "the most peaceful andhappy of any portion of his life. "

His work there was done, as all his work throughout his life was done, with all his might. 

When he first took command he was worried by the amount of time thatwas wasted as he rowed from one port which he had to inspect, toanother, in a pair-oared boat. He put away the pair-oared boat and gota four-oared gig, and soon had the men who pulled it trained to row himin racing style. They might sometimes have waited for hours on thechance of Colonel Gordon wanting them, but the minute his trim littlefigure was seen marching smartly down to the jetty, there was a rushfor the boat. Almost before he was seated, the oars would be dippedand the men's backs bent as if they meant to win a boat race. 

"A little faster, boys! a little faster!" Gordon would constantly say, and when he jumped ashore and hurried off to his work, he would leavebehind him four very breathless men, who were proud of being the crewof the very fastest boat pulled in those waters. 

The engineers under him he also trained never to lose any time, --alwaysto do a thing not only as thoroughly and as well as possible, but asquickly as possible. 

He would land at a port, and run up the steep earthworks in front ofit, while his followers, many of them big, heavy men, would comepuffing and panting after him. 

One of his friends writes of him, "He was a severe and unsparingtaskmaster, and allowed no shirking. No other officer could have gothalf the work out of the men that he did. He used to keep them up tothe mark by exclaiming, whenever he saw them flag: 'Another fiveminutes gone, and this not done yet, my men! We shall never have themagain. '"

The old-fashioned house, with its big old garden, which was Gordon'shome during those six years, saw many strange guests during that time. 

"His house, " says one writer, "was school, and hospital, and almshousein turn--was more like the abode of a missionary than of a Colonel ofEngineers. "

In his working hours he worked his hardest to serve his Queen andcountry. In the hours in which he might have rested or amused himself, he worked equally hard. And this other work was to serve the poor, thesick, the lonely, and to give a helping hand to every one of those whoneeded help. The boys whose work was on the river or the sea, and the"mud-larks" of Gravesend, were his special care. Many a boy who had nowork and no right home, he took from the streets, washed, clothed, fed, and took into his house to stay with him as his guest. When he hadfound work for those boys, either as sailors or in other ways, he wouldgive them outfits and money, and start them in life. For the boys whowere being sheltered by him, and for others from outside, he beganevening classes. There he taught them, and read to them, and did allthat he could to make them Christian gentlemen. His "Kings" he calledthem, perhaps remembering the many Kings or "Wangs" who ruled in theTae-Ping army. 

A map of the world, hanging over his mantelpiece, was stuck full ofpins. Some one asked the meaning of this, and was told by Gordon thatthey marked and followed the course of his boys on their voyages. Thepins were moved from point to point as the boys sailed onward. "I prayfor each one of them day by day, " he said. 

Soon Gordon's class grew too big for his room to hold, and he thenbegan to have a class at the Ragged Schools. The mud-larks ofGravesend needed no coaxing to go to "The Kernel's" class. Here was ateacher who did not only try to teach them to be good and manly, andstraight and true, and _gentle_ men, but who, when he taught themgeography, could tell them the most splendid and exciting stories ofcountries beyond the seas, where he himself had fought in greatbattles. He never _preached_ at them, or looked solemn and shocked, but made them laugh more than any one else ever did, and had themerriest twinkle in his kind, keen eyes, that were like the sea, andlooked sometimes blue, sometimes grey. 

He found out one day that what his "Kings" most longed to do was to goup to London to see the Zoo. No sooner did he know it than every planwas made for the little campaign. He himself could not leave his work, but he got some one else to take them, saw them safely off with theirdinner in baskets, and welcomed them back in the evening to a greatstrawberry feast. 

Three or four of the boys who stayed with him got scarlet fever, andfar into the night he would sit with them, telling them stories, andsoothing them until they stopped tossing about and fell asleep. 

At first, when he came to Gravesend, he clothed two or three boys inthe year. But it was not long before he gave away, each year, severalhundreds of suits, and had to buy boys' boots by the gross. 

All this came out of his pay. Gordon was always well-dressed, well-groomed, and looked like an officer and a gentleman, but uponhimself he spent next to nothing. 

His food was of the plainest, and sometimes of the scantiest. He wouldtell, with a twinkle in his eye, what a surprise it was to the boys whocame to stay with him, expecting to be fed with all sorts of dainties, to find that salt beef, and just what other things were necessary, waswhat the Colonel had to eat. 

Constantly his purse and pockets were empty, for scarcely ever did anyone come to Gordon for help without getting it, and Gordon had no moneysave his pay as a colonel. 

Often he had disappointments. There were people who were mean enoughto deceive him, and people with no gratitude in their hearts. 

One boy he found starving, in rags, and miserably ill. He fed him, clothed him, had him doctored and nursed, and, when he was well, senthim back to his parents in Norfolk. But neither boy nor parents eversent him one line of thanks. 

Another starving, ragged boy he took into his house. He fed, clothed, and taught him, and at last found him a good place on a ship, and senthim to sea. Three times did this little scamp run away from the ship, and turn up filthy, starving, and in rags. The third time Gordon foundhim in the evening lurking at the door, half dead with hunger and cold. The boy was much too dirty to be brought into the house with otherboys, and Gordon looked at him for a minute in silence. He then ledhim to the stable, gave him a heap of clean straw in an empty stall tosleep on, and some bread and milk for supper. Early next morningGordon appeared with soap, towels, a brush, a sponge, and a fresh suitof clothes. He poured a bucket of hot water into the horse trough, andhimself gave him a thorough scrubbing. 

[Illustration: Gordon appeared with soap, towels, a brush, a sponge, and a fresh suit of clothes]

We do not know what afterwards became of the boy. It would be nice tothink that he was the unknown man who came to the house of Sir HenryGordon, when the news of General Gordon's death was heard, and wishedto give £25 towards a memorial to him. "All my success and prosperityI owe to the Colonel, " he said. 

There were many boys--there are many men now--with good cause forsaying from their hearts, "_God bless the Colonel. _"

A boy, who worked in a shop, stole some money from his master, who wasvery angry, and said he would have him put in prison. The boy'smother, in a terrible state of grief, came to Gordon and begged him tohelp her. Gordon went to the boy's master, and persuaded him to letthe boy off. He then sent the little lad to school for twelve months, and afterwards found him a berth at sea. The boy has grown up into anhonest, good man. "God bless the Colonel, " he, too, can say. 

Two afternoons a week Gordon went to the infirmary, to cheer up thesick people there. And in all parts of Gravesend he would find out oldand bedridden men and women, sit with them, cheer them up with tales ofhis days in Russia and China, and make them feel less lonely and lesssad. "He always had handy a bit o' baccy for the old men, and a screwo' tea for the old women, " it was said. 

One poor, sick old woman was told by the doctor that she must have somedainties and some wine, which she had no money to buy. But each day agood fairy brought them to her, and the good fairy was Colonel Gordon. 

A sick man, who lay fretting in bed, feeling there was nothing to do, nothing to interest him, found each day a _Daily News_ left at hisdoor. Again the good fairy was Colonel Gordon. 

A big, rough waterman, tossing about in bed with an aching, parchedthroat, and in a burning fever, also knew the good fairy. Night afternight the Colonel sat by his bed, tending him as gently as the gentlestnurse, and placing cool grapes in his parched mouth. 

In the Colonel's big, old-fashioned garden, with its trim borders ofboxwood, one would find on summer days the old and the halt sunningthemselves. Many nice flowers and vegetables were grown in the garden, but they did not belong to him. He allowed some of his poor people toplant and sow there what vegetables they chose, and then to make moneyfor themselves by selling them. 

Presents of fruit and flowers sent to him at once found their way tothe hospital or to the workhouse. People saw that it was no use everto give Gordon any presents, because they at once went to those whoneeded the things more than he did. 

To the poor he gave pensions of so much a week--from 1s. To £1. Someof these pensions were still kept up and paid to the day of his death, thirteen years later. 

He was always tender-hearted, always merciful, and he _always_ forgave. 

A soldier got tipsy, and stole five valuable patent locks. Gordonasked the manager of the works from which they had been taken what hemeant to do. 

"The carpenters were to blame for leaving the locks about, so I amgoing to let the soldier off, " said the manager. 

"Thank you, thank you, " said Gordon, as eagerly as if he himself hadbeen the thief. "That is what I should have done myself. "

One day a woman called on him and told him a piteous story. He leftthe room to get her half-a-sovereign, and while he was gone she stolehis overcoat, and hid it under her skirt. When he came back with themoney, she thanked him again and again, and went away. As she walkedalong the street, the overcoat--a brown one--slipped down. A policemannoticed it, and asked her what it meant. The woman, too frightened totell a lie, said she had stolen it from "the Kernel. " Back to Gordon'shouse the policeman marched her. The coat was shown to Gordon, and thepoliceman asked him to charge the woman with the theft, and have herput in prison. But this Gordon refused to do. He was really far moredistressed than was the thief herself. At last, his eyes twinkling, heturned to the woman. 

"You wanted it, I suppose?" he asked. 

"Yes, " said the surprised woman. 

"There, there, take her away and send her about her business, " he saidto the policeman, and the policeman could only obey. 

The gold medal which the Empress of China had had made for himmysteriously disappeared, no one could tell how or where. Yearsafterwards, by accident, it was found that Gordon had had theinscription taken off it, and had sent it anonymously to Manchester, tohelp to buy food for the people who were starving there because of theCotton Famine. It cost him so much to give it up that often, when hemeant that others should give up something that was to cost them a verygreat deal, he would say, "You must give up your medal. "

"In slums, hospitals, and workhouse, or knee-deep in the river at workupon the Thames defence, " so he spent the six happiest years of hislife. 

In 1871, to the deep sorrow of all Gravesend, he was made BritishCommissioner to the European Commission of the Danube, where he haddone good work fifteen years earlier. 

To his "Kings" at the Ragged Schools he left a number of magnificentChinese flags, trophies of his victories in China. They are stillcarried aloft every year at school treats, and the name of their giveris cheered until the echoes ring and voices grow hoarse. 

To the people of Gravesend, and to people of all lands who hear thestory of those six years, he left the memory of a man whose charity wasperfect, whose mercy was without limit, and whose faith in the God heserved was never-failing. 

CHAPTER V

GORDON AND THE SLAVERS

Gordon went to his work on the Danube on 1st October 1871, and remainedthere until 1873. 

On his return to England then, his short visit was a sad one. While hewas home his mother became paralysed, and no longer knew the son sheloved so much; and the death took place of his youngest brother, whohad shared his pranks in the long-ago happy days at Woolwich. 

In the same year the Khedive of Egypt asked Gordon to come, at a salaryof £10, 000 a year, to be Governor of the tribes on the Upper Nile. 

Gordon accepted the post, but would not take more than £2000 a year. He wished, he said, "to show the Khedive and his people that gold andsilver idols are not worshipped by all the world. " He knew that themoney was wrung from the poor people of Egypt and that some of it wasthe price of slaves, and he could not bear to enrich himself with moneyso gained. 

The Soudan, or Country of the Blacks, which was now to be the scene ofGordon's work, is one of the dreariest parts of Africa. 

In years not so long ago, the Egyptians had nothing to do with it. Forbetween Egypt and the Black People's country lay hundreds of miles ofsandy desert--desolate, lonely, without water. Behind its rocks thewild desert tribes could hide, to surprise and murder peaceful traderswho tried to bring their camel caravans across the waste of sand. Andwhen the desert was crossed and the Soudan reached, the country was notone to love or to long for. 

A wretched, dry land is the Soudan, a land across which hot windssweep, like blasts from a furnace, driving the sand before them. TheNile wanders through it, but in the Soudan there is none of the greenand pleasant river country that we know, who know the Thames and theTweed, the Hudson or St. Lawrence. 

There is never a fresh leaf, never a blade of grass. The hills arebare slopes, the valleys strewn with sand and stones. Tufts of roughyellow grass and stunted grey bushes, a mass of thorns, grow here andthere on the yellow sand. The mimosa trees, sapless and dry, are thickwith thorns. The palms, called dom-palms, grow fruit like wood. TheSodom apples, that look like real fruit, are poisonous and horrible tothe taste. 

Tarantulas, scorpions, serpents, white ants, mosquitoes, and every kindof loathsome creature that flies and crawls is to be found there. 

When men are toiling through that land, dust in their throats, sand intheir eyes, and longing with all their hearts for the sight ofsomething green, and the touch and taste of fresh, cool, sparklingwater, sometimes they see a great wonder. 

In front of them suddenly appears a lake or river, sparkling andshimmering. There is green grass at the water-side. White-wingedbirds float on it, and trees dip their leafy branches into itscoolness. Sometimes great palaces and towers overlook it. Sometimesit seems a lonely spot, quiet and peaceful, and delicious for the wearywanderers to rest at. 

English soldiers have often started off running with their emptywater-bottles to fill them in that lake or river. Many, manytravellers have hastened towards it when they knew that they must havewater or die. But ever the mirage, as it is called, retreats beforethem. That water is like magic water that no human being can everdrink. The palaces and towers are like fairy palaces and towers intowhich no real person ever enters. The green leaves and white birds, the trees and the grass, are only a picture that the sun and the desertmake to madden thirst-parched men. 

"When Allah made the Soudan, " say the Arabs, "he laughed. "

European traders were amongst the first to open a way into the Soudan. The Egyptians knew that there was much fine ivory to be got there, butwere too lazy to try to get it. The Europeans, many of themEnglishmen, braved dangers and hardships, and made much money by theivory they bought from the black people of the desert land. Soon theyfound there was something else for which they could get much higherprices than any that they could get for elephants' tusks. They calledit "black ivory. " By that they meant slaves. 

At once they began to raid, to harry, and to kidnap the black races ofthe Soudan. They built forts and garrisoned them with Arabs, to whomno cruelty was too frightful, no wickedness too great. They burneddown the villages of the blacks. They stole their flocks and herds. They burned or stole their crops. Their wives and little children theytore from them, chained them in gangs, and took them across the desertto sell for slaves. The men whom they could not take they slew. 

So great and shameless became this trade, that at last Europe grewashamed that any of her people should be guilty of it. There was anoutcry made. The Europeans sold their stations to the Arabs, andquietly withdrew. The Arabs then agreed to pay a tax to the EgyptianGovernment, which saw no harm in stealing people and selling them asslaves, so long as some of the money thus gained went into the royaltreasury. 

And so the slave trade grew and grew, until, in 1874, out of everyhundred people of the land about eighty-four were slaves. The Arabstrained some of the black boys they caught to be slave-hunters, andtaught them so well that they grew up even more wicked and cruel thantheir masters. 

Before long the slavers became so powerful and so rich that they nolonger owned the Khedive as their king. Their king was Sebehr, therichest and worst of them all--a man who used to have chained lions aspart of his escort, and who owned a great army of armed slaves. Whenthe slavers refused to pay a tax any longer, and when they had cut inpieces the army the Khedive sent to quell them, the Khedive grew afraid. 

He knew that England and the other European Powers were angry with himbecause he permitted slavery. And now that the slavers refused to obeyhim, he was between two fires. 

So the Khedive and his ministers suddenly seemed to become very muchshocked at the wicked traffic in slaves in the Soudan, and askedColonel Gordon to come and help to stop it. 

Early in February Gordon arrived in Cairo. He had been but a few daysthere when he wrote: "I think I can see the true motive now of theexpedition, and believe it to be a sham to catch the attention of theEnglish people. " He felt he had been humbugged. Only in name was heGovernor, for the Egyptian Government only owned three stations in thatwide tract of country which he had been asked to come and govern. 

But Gordon never turned his back upon those who wanted help. The landwas full of misery. There were thousands of wretched people to fightfor and to set free. Humbugged or not, he must do the work he had cometo do, and on the 18th of February 1874 he started for the Soudan. 

The Egyptian troops and Gordon's own staff were amazed when they foundwhat sort of a man was the new Governor. They were used to theEgyptian officials who never did any work they were not paid for, whodid not do it then if they could find any one else to do it for them, and whose hands were constantly held out asking for bribes. 

Sebehr the slaver, when he went to Cairo, took with him £100, 000 tobribe the Pashas. It was as if some notorious criminal should go toLondon with £100, 000 gained by murders and thefts to bribe the BritishGovernment. But what would be outrageous in our country was a veryusual thing in Egypt. 

As Gordon and his troops (200 Egyptian soldiers) sailed up the Nile intheir _dahabeah_, the boat was often blocked by the tangled waterweeds. And always one of the first to spring into the water and helpto pull the boat onwards was the new Governor. The old Nilecrocodiles, even, must have been surprised; but they did him no harm, for they never touch any one who is moving. 

They landed at Berber, and after a fortnight's march across the desertthey reached the two or three thousand yellowish-white, flat-roofed, mud-walled houses that made Khartoum, the capital of the Soudan. 

There eight busy days were spent. He issued proclamations; he held areview; he visited the hospitals and the schools. "The little blackswere glad to see me, " he wrote; "I wish the flies would not dine on thecorners of their eyes. "

The grown-up people at Khartoum also seemed delighted to see "HisExcellency General Colonel Gordon, the Governor-General of theEquator, " as his title went. "They make a shrill noise when they seeyou, as a salutation; it is like a jingle of bells, very shrill, andsomewhat musical, " wrote Gordon. 

From Khartoum he sailed up the Nile to Gondokoro, and enjoyed like aboy all the new sights he came across. 

Hoary old crocodiles lay basking on the sand, their hungry mouthsagape. Great hippopotamuses, "like huge islands, " walked about in theshallows, and sometimes bellowed and fought all night. Troops ofmonkeys, "with very long tails stuck up straight like swords all overtheir backs, " came down to drink. Herds of elephants and of fierce, coal-black buffaloes eyed the boat threateningly from the banks, whilegiraffes, looking like steeples, nibbled the tops of trees. AtKhartoum the sight of flocks of English sparrows had gladdened Gordon'sheart. Now he saw storks and geese preparing to go north for thesummer, and many strange birds as well. He found out that some littlewhite birds that roosted in the trees near where he camped were whiteegrets. Their feathers make the plumes of horse artillery officers, and trim many hats and bonnets, so Gordon did not tell his men of hisdiscovery. "I do not want the poor things to be killed, " he wrote. 

Not only strange birds and beasts were to be seen on the way toGondokoro. The wild black people came down to the banks to stare. Some had their faces smeared with ashes, others wore gourds forheaddresses. Some wore neither gourds nor anything else. Onechieftain's full dress was a string of beads. At first he was afraidto come near Gordon, but when he had been given a present of beads andother things he grew very friendly. 

"He came up to me, " says Gordon, "took up each hand, and gave a goodsoft lick to the backs of them; and then he held my face and made themotion of spitting in it. "

This was a mark of great politeness and respect. A chief of this tribeonce welcomed an English traveller by spitting into each of his hands, and then into his face. The traveller, in a rage, spat back as hard asever he could, and the chief was overcome with joy at the traveller'sfriendliness. 

Near Gondokoro, at St. Croix, Gordon came to the ruins of an Austrianmissionary settlement. Only a few banana trees, planted by themissionaries, and some graves, marked where the Christian settlementhad been. Out of twenty missionaries who had gone there duringthirteen years, thirteen had died of fever, two of dysentery, and two, broken in health, had had to go home. And yet they had not been ableto claim as a Christian even one of the blacks amongst whom theyworked. No wonder that the Austrian Government lost heart and gave upthe mission. 

When Gordon reached Gondokoro he saw that it was absurd to pretend thatthe Khedive ruled any of the country outside its walls. No one daredgo half a mile outside without being in danger of his life from thetribes whose wives and children and cattle the slavers had taken. 

Gordon felt that to make friends with those people, to show them thathe was sorry for them, and that he wished to help them, was the firstthing to be done if he was to be in reality their Governor. And so, ashe travelled on from point to point--back to Khartoum from Gondokoro, to Berber, to Fashoda, to Soubat--he made friends wherever he went. Quickly the black people came to love the man who punished or slewtheir enemies, who took them from the slavers, and gave them back theirwives and children and cattle. He gave grain to some, set others toplant maize, fed the starving ones, and always paid them for each pieceof work that they did for him. 

Sometimes, even, he would buy from them the children that they were toopoor to feed, and find good homes for them. 

One man sold him his two boys of twelve and eight for a basket ofdhoora (a kind of grain). He soon found that the blacks did not lookon the sale of human beings in the same way that he did. 

[Illustration: In the Soudan buying two children for a basketful ofdhoora]

One man stole a cow, and when the owner found out the thief and came toclaim his cow, it was too late. The cow had been eaten. 

Next day Gordon passed the man's hut, and saw that one of his twochildren was gone. 

"Where was the other?" he asked of the mother. 

"Oh, it had been given to the man from whom the cow had been stolen, "she replied with a happy smile. 

"But, " said Gordon, "are you not sorry?"

"Oh no! we would rather have the cow. "

"But you have eaten the cow, and the pleasure is over, " said Gordon. 

"Oh, but, all the same, we would sooner have the cow!"

Two little boys came smiling up to Gordon one day, and pressed him tobuy one of them for a little basketful of dhoora. Gordon bought one, and both boys were delighted. 

"Do buy me for a little piece of cloth. I should like to be yourslave, " said one little fellow that Gordon rescued from a gang ofslavers. It was this boy, Capsune, who years afterwards asked Gordon'ssister if she was quite sure that Gordon Pasha still kept his blueeyes. "Do you think he can see all through me now?" he asked, andsaid, "I am quite sure Gordon Pasha could see quite well in the dark, because he has the light inside him. "

Most of the slaves that the Arab slavers had in their gangs were littlechildren. In one caravan that Gordon rescued there were ninety slaves, very few over sixteen, most of them little mites of boys and girls, perfect skeletons. They had been brought over 500 miles of desert, andthe ninety were all that lived out of about four hundred. 

When Gordon rescued them, they knew the gentle, tender Gordon, whosetenderness was like a mother's. 

It was another Gordon that the slavers knew--a man terrible in hisanger. Having taken from the ruffianly Arabs who had so cruellytreated the little children, their slaves, their stolen cattle, andtheir ivory, he would have them stripped and flogged, and driven nakedinto the desert. 

For two months he was at Saubat River, a lonely and desolate country, the prey of slavers. It was so dull and dreary a place, that the Arabsoldiers were sent there for a punishment, as the Russians are sent toSiberia. 

But Gordon was too busy to be dull. He was always so full of thoughtfor others, that he never had time to be sorry for himself. 

"_I am sure it is the secret of true happiness to be content with whatwe actually have_, " he wrote from Saubat. 

From there, too, he wrote: "I took a poor old bag-of-bones into my campa month ago, and have been feeding her up; but yesterday she wasquietly taken off, and now knows all things. She had her tobacco up tothe last. "

Looking out of his camp he saw a poor woman, "a wisp of bones, " feeblystruggling up the road in wind and rain. He sent some dhoora to her byone of his men, and thought she had been taken safely to one of thehuts. All through that wet and stormy night he heard a baby crying. At dawn he found the woman lying in a pool of mud, apparently dead, while men passed and repassed her, and took no notice. Her baby, notquite a year old, sat and wailed in some long grass near her. Thewoman was actually not dead, but she died a few days later. The babyboy was none the worse for his night out, and drank off a gourd of milk"like a man. " Gordon gave him to a family to look after, paying forhim daily with some maize. 

Mosquitoes and other insects were a pest wherever he went, but atSaubat he had the extra pest of rats. They ran over his mosquito nets, ate his soap, his books, his boots, and his shaving-brush, and screamedand fought all night, until he invented a clever trap and stopped theirthefts. 

When Gordon returned to Gondokoro, he found nearly all his own staffill with fever and ague. Out of ten only two were well, --one of thesehaving newly recovered from a severe fever. Two were dead, and sixseriously ill. Gordon himself was worn to a mere shadow, but he had toact as doctor and as sick-nurse. The weather was cold and wet, and therain came into the tents. To his sister, Gordon wrote: "Imagine yourbrother paddling about a swamped tent without boots, attending to asick man at night, with more than a chance of the tent coming downbodily. " Of course he got chilled, and ill too, and at last gave anorder that "all illness is to take place away from me. "

Nor was it only sickness amongst his friends that he had to sadden him. He found that his Egyptian officials--some of them those he had mosttrusted--were leaguing with the slavers, taking bribes, helping to undothe good work he had already done, and trying to rouse his troops intomutiny. The troops themselves were a great trial. They were lazy, treacherous, chicken-hearted fellows, with no pluck. "I never had lessconfidence in any troops in my life, " Gordon said, and he declared thatthree natives would put a whole company to flight. The nativeSoudanese were as brave as lions. A native has been known to killhimself because his wife called him a coward. The Arab soldiers whenon sentry duty would all go to sleep at their posts, and think no harmof it. 

The climate of the Soudan did not suit them, and they died like flies. Of one detachment of 250, half were dead in three months, 100invalided, and only twenty-five fit for duty, and yet the EgyptianGovernment continued to send them instead of the black troops Gordonasked for. 

From Gondokoro, Gordon moved to Rageef, and there built a station onhealthier ground, higher up from the marshes. He sent to Gondokoro forammunition for his mountain howitzer, and the commandant there thoughtit a good chance to pawn off on him some that was so damp as to beuseless. With ten men and no ammunition, his Arab allies left him in aplace where no Arab would have stayed without 100 well-armed men. 

Gordon's German servant, and two little black boys that Gordon hadbought, followed in a small boat to Rageef with Gordon's baggage. 

The German came to Gordon with very grave face. 

"I have had a great loss, " said he. Gordon at once thought that one ofthe boys must have been drowned. 

"What?" he anxiously asked. 

"I saw a hippopotamus on the bank, " said the man, "and fired at himwith your big rifle; and I did not know it would kick so hard, and itkicked me over, and it fell into the water. "

Said Gordon, "You are a born idiot of three years old! How dare youtouch my rifle?"

But the rifle was gone, and he had to smile as the little black boysmimicked the German's fright when he dropped the rifle and laughed inscorn at him. 

At Rageef, seeing he need expect no real help from the EgyptianGovernment, Gordon began to form an army of his own, making soldiers ofthe Soudanese, --the "Gippies, " as our own soldiers now call them. Andthe Gippies are as brave and soldier-like a body of troops as is to befound. "We, " they say, "are like the English; we are not afraid. " Heenlisted men who had been slaves, and men who had been slavers. Adetachment of cannibals that he came across he also enlisted, drilled, and trained, and turned into first-rate soldiers. 

The slavers grew afraid of Gordon Pasha, and of the army that he hadmade. 

Where an Egyptian official would not have dared to go without a convoyof 100 soldiers, and where a single soldier would have been sure tohave been waylaid and murdered, Gordon could now go in safety, aloneand unarmed. He would walk along the river banks for miles and miles, only armed when he wished to shoot a hippopotamus. 

Gordon's work was always much varied. Always, each bit of it was donewith all his might. 

He drilled savages, shot hippopotamuses, mended watches and musicalboxes for black chiefs, patched his own clothes and made clothes forsome of his men, invented rat-traps and machines for making rockets, tamed baby lions and baby hippopotamuses, cleaned guns, raided thecamps of slavers, nursed the sick, and fed the hungry. And day andnight he worked to rid the land of slavery; to teach the black peoplethe meaning of justice, of mercy, and of honour. 

His food all the time was of the plainest--no vegetables, only drybiscuits, bits of broiled meat, and macaroni boiled in sugar and water. Ants and beetles often nested in the stores, and made them horrid tothe taste. "Oh, how I should like a good dinner!" he wrote to hissister. 

In addition to all his other work, Gordon had the task of finding outfor himself the exact geography of that part of the Nile of which hewas Governor, and he had to do much exploring. 

While doing this he one day marched 18 miles through jungle, in pouringrain. Another day, in the hottest season of that hot land, he marched35 miles. 

As he and his men sailed up the Nile they met with many dangers. Therewere rapids to pass, furious hippopotamuses to charge their boats, andon the banks were concealed enemies, throwing their assegais withdeadly aim. And through all this he had only a pack of cowardly Arabsto depend on for everything. 

A wizard belonging to one of the black tribes, sure that the white manand his soldiers could only have come for some evil purpose, stood onthe top of a rock by the river, screaming curses at them and excitinghis tribe. 

"I don't think that's a healthy spot to deliver an address from, " saidGordon, taking up a rifle and pointing it at the wizard, who at onceran away. 

"We do not want your beads; we do not want your cloth; we only want youto go away, " one tribe said to him. Gordon's heart was full of pityfor them. It was for them that he was spending his life, had they onlyknown it. 

The never-ending work and worry tried him badly. 

"Poor sheath, it is much worn, " he wrote of himself from the drearyland of marsh and forest into which he had come while laying down achain of posts between Gondokoro and the Lakes. 

The dampness of the marshes was poison to white men, and earwigs, ants, mosquitoes, sandflies, beetles, scorpions, snakes, and every imaginableinsect and reptile seemed to do their best to make things unpleasantfor him. 

The turf was full of prickly grass seeds; the long grass cut thefingers to the bone if people tried to pick it. The very fruit wasbitter and poisonous. Rain sometimes fell in unexpected torrents, soheavy that he was flooded out of his tent. 

When he was dead tired, body and soul, Gordon would sometimes buildcastles of what he would do when he got back to England. He would liein bed till eleven, and always wear his best fur coat, and travel firstclass, and have oysters every day for lunch!

In 1876 there seemed a chance of his really building his castles. 

He felt it was impossible to rid the land of slavery, with the Egyptianofficials, who did not wish to have it stopped, working hard againsthim, and so, after three years of hard work, he threw up his post andwent home. 

No sooner was he gone than the Khedive realised how great a loss itwould be to him and to his country if Gordon were not to return. 

He begged him to come back, and he would make him Governor-General ofthe Soudan, and help him in every possible way to carry out the work hewished to do. 

So Gordon returned, and in February 1877 he started for the Soudan, absolute ruler now of 1640 miles of desert, marsh, and forest. 

"So there is an end of slavery, " he wrote to his sister, "if God wills, for the whole secret of the matter is in that Government (the Soudan), and if the man who holds the Soudan is against it, it mustcease. " . . . "I go up alone with an infinite Almighty God to directand guide me, and am glad to so trust Him as to fear nothing, and, indeed, to feel sure of success. "

From this time on, in every direction, the slavers were hunted andharried and driven out of the land, as one drives rats from a farmyard. 

On every side he came on caravans packed with starving slaves, dying ofhunger and thirst, and set them free. The desert was strewn not onlywith the bodies of camels, that the dry air had turned into mummies, but with the bones and whitened skulls of the slave-dealers' victims. Everywhere he had to look out for treachery and for lying, and be readyto pounce on slaves cunningly concealed by the kidnappers. 

A hundred or more would sometimes be found being smuggled past, downthe Nile, hidden under a boatload of wood. 

Gordon, on a camel that he rode so quickly that it came to be calledthe Telegraph, seemed to fly across the silent desert like a magician. Daily, often all alone, he would ride 30 or 40 miles. In the threeyears during which he governed the Soudan he rode 8490 miles. 

The black people knew that he was always willing to listen to theirtroubles, always ready to help them. In the first three days of hisgovernorship he gave away over £1000 of his own money to the hungrypoor. 

Great chiefs, as well as poor people, came to see him and became hisfriends. If one of them sat too long, Gordon would rise and say inEnglish: "Now, old bird, it is time for you to go, " and the chief wouldgo away, delighted with the Governor's affability and politeness. Those who begged, and continued to beg for things he could not grant, knew a different Governor. 

"Never!" he would shout in an angry voice. "Do you understand? Haveyou finished?" and they would hurry off, frightened at his flashingeyes. 

When fighting was necessary, he led his men as he had led his Chinesetroops in past days. Like Nelson, he did not know the meaning of theword "fear. "

News came to him that the son of Sebehr, king of the slavers, with 6000men, was about to attack a poor, weak little garrison that they couldhave wiped out with the greatest ease. At once Gordon mounted hiscamel, and, alone and unarmed, sped off across the desert, covering 85miles in a day and a half. On the way he rode into a swarm of fliesthat thickly covered him and his camel. Of his arrival at the littlegarrison he wrote to his sister: "I came on my people like athunderbolt. . . . Imagine to yourself a single, dirty, red-faced manon a camel, ornamented with flies, arriving in the divan all of asudden. They were paralysed, and could not believe their eyes. "

Still more paralysed were the slavers when, at dawn next morning, thererode into their camp Gordon Pasha, radiant in the gorgeous "goldenarmour" the Khedive had given him. Fearlessly and scornfully Gordoncondemned them, and ordered them at once to lay down their arms. Theylistened in silence and wonderment, and then weakly submitted to thisgreat Pasha who knew no fear. 

[Illustration: There rode into their camp Gordon Pasha]

When the slavers' power had been broken and their dens harried out--notwithout some heavy fighting--Gordon went on a mission from the Khediveto the King of Abyssinia, one of the cruellest and most savage of cruelkings. The Khedive wanted peace, but the Abyssinian King would nothave it, and treated Gordon with the greatest insolence. 

"Do you know that I could kill you?" he asked, glaring at Gordon like atiger. Gordon answered that he was quite ready to die, and that inkilling him the King would only confer a favour on him, opening a doorhe must not open for himself. 

"Then my power has no terrors for you?" said the King. 

"None whatever, " replied Gordon, and the King, who was used to rule byterror, had no more to say. 

This mission over, Gordon, utterly worn out, and broken in health, returned to Egypt, and resigned his post as Governor-General of theSoudan. 

The slaves that he had set free used to try to kiss his feet and thehem of his garment. To this day there is a name known in Egypt and inthe Soudan as that of a man who scorned money, who had no fear of anyman, who did not even fear death, whose mercy was as perfect as hisuprightness. And the name of that man is Gordon Pasha. 

"Give us another Governor like Gordon Pasha, " was the cry of theSoudanese when the Mahdi uprose to be a scourge to the Soudan. 

CHAPTER VI

KHARTOUM

Gordon left Egypt in December 1879, "not a day too soon, " the doctorsaid, for he was ill, not only from hard work, but from overwork. 

The burden he had carried on his shoulders through those years was theburden of the whole of the Soudan. 

He was ordered several months of complete rest. But those days of restwere only castles that Gordon had built in his day-dreams, when burningdays and bitter nights had made him long for ease. 

Early in 1880 he became Secretary to Lord Ripon, Viceroy of India. Heremained only a few months in India, and then went to China, in answerto an urgent message from his old friend, Li Hung Chang. 

China and Russia were on the brink of a great war. The Chinesecourtiers wished to fight, but Li Hung Chang longed for peace. 

"Come and help me to keep peace, " he said to Gordon. And "ChineseGordon" did not fail him. 

"I cannot desert China in her present crisis, " he wrote. 

His stay in China was not long, but when he returned to England he hadmade peace between two empires. 

He had only been home for a short time when again he was on the wing. 

One day at the War Office he met a brother officer, who complained ofhis bad luck at having to go and command the Engineers at such a dullplace as the Island of Mauritius. 

"Oh, don't worry yourself, " said Gordon, "I will go for you: Mauritiusis as good for me as anywhere else. "

For a year he remained there--a peaceful, if dull year, but in March1882 he was made a Major-General, and relieved from his post. 

For a short time he was in South Africa, trying to put to rightsaffairs between the Basutos--a black race--and the Government at theCape. The Government, who had asked him to come, treated him badly, and even put his life in danger. He made them very angry by tellingthem that they were wholly in the wrong, and that he would not fightthe Basutos, who had right and justice on their side; and, havingfailed in his mission, he returned to England. 

To find the rest and peace he so much needed, Gordon now went to theHoly Land. 

Long ago, the day before a brave warrior was made a knight, he spentthe hours from sunset till dawn alone in a chapel beside his armour, watching and praying. This was called "watching his armour. "

Gordon was "watching his armour" now. Often he saw no one for weeks ata time. He prayed much, and the books he read were his Bible, hisPrayer Book, Thomas à Kempis, and Marcus Aurelius. He wandered overthe ground where the feet of the Master he served so well had trodbefore him. He was much in Jerusalem. He went to where the greyolives grow in the Garden of Gethsemane. His own Gethsemane was stillto come. 

In those quiet days he planned great work that he meant to do in theEast End of London. 

But there was other work for him to do. "We have nothing to do whenthe scroll of events is unrolled but to accept them as being for thebest, " he once wrote. 

In December 1883 he suddenly returned to London, and soon it was knownthat he was going, at the request of the King of the Belgians, to theCongo, to help to fight the slavers there. "We will kill them in theirhaunts, " said Gordon. 

Meantime, fresh things had been happening in the Soudan. 

When Gordon left Egypt in 1879, he said to an English official there:"I shall go, and you must get a man to succeed me--if you can. But Ido not deny that he will want three qualifications which are seldomfound together. First, he must have my iron constitution; for Khartoumis too much for any one who has not. Then, he must have my contemptfor money; otherwise the people will never believe in his sincerity. Lastly, he must have my contempt for death. "

Such a man was not found, and well might the black people long for thereturn of Gordon Pasha, the only Christian for whom they offeredprayers at Mecca. 

When he went away, under the rule of the greedy Egyptian pashas theslave trade began again. Once more packed caravans of wretched slavesdragged across the desert, and the land was full of misery and ofrebellion. 

In 1881 the discontented Soudanese found a leader. 

From the island of Abbas on the Nile, Mahommed Ahmed, a dervish or holyman, from Dongola, proclaimed to the people of Egypt and of the Soudanthat he was a prophet sent from heaven to save them from the cruelty oftheir rulers. 

_El Mahdi el Muntazer_, or The Expected One, he called himself, andsaid he was immortal and would never die. 

Soon he had many followers. He was attended by soldiers, who stood inhis presence with drawn swords, and he had all the power of a king. Because he was Mahdi, his followers all had to obey him. And as he wasMahdi, he himself did exactly as he pleased, and what he liked to dowas all that was wicked and cruel. 

The Governor-General at Khartoum, seeing that the Mahdi was growingmuch too powerful, sent two companies of soldiers to take him prisoner. The Mahdists made a trap for them, fell on them with their swords andshort stabbing spears, and destroyed them. More troops were sent, andalso destroyed. Then came a small army, and of that army almost no manescaped. 

"This is in truth our Deliverer, sent from Heaven, " said the wildpeople of the Soudan, and they flocked in tribes to join the Mahdi. 

It was not long before he owned a great army, and there have never beenany soldiers who fought more fiercely and with more magnificentcourage, and who feared death less, than those followers of a savagedervish. 

The Mahdi laid siege to one of the chief cities of the Soudan. It fellbefore him, and sack and massacre followed. 

An army of 11, 000, under the command of a brave English officer, wasthen sent to attack the Mahdi. Like all the troops that had gonebefore them, they were led into a trap, and, out of 11, 000 men, onlyeleven returned to Egypt. 

From one victory to another went the Mahdi. His troops, armed withweapons taken from those they had slain, were rich with plunder. 

Only two Englishmen were now left in the Soudan. At Khartoum wereColonel Coëtlogan and Mr. Frank Power, correspondent of the _Times_. 

Colonel Coëtlogan telegraphed that it was hopeless for the Egyptiantroops in the Soudan to hold out against the Mahdi. Soldiers weredeserting daily, and people on every hand were joining the victoriousarmy of the ruffian who claimed to have been sent from Heaven. ColonelCoëtlogan begged for orders for the loyal troops to leave the Soudanand seek safety in Egypt. 

Gordon believed that if the Soudan were given up to the Mahdi, therewould presently be no limit to the tyrant's power. All the slavery andmisery from which Gordon had tried to free the land would be worse thanever before. Egypt and Arabia might also, before long, take as theirking the Mahdi who ruled the Soudan. 

He held that at all costs Khartoum must be defended, and not handedover to the Mahdi, as Colonel Coëtlogan and many others advised. 

In England this belief of General Gordon, who knew more about theSoudan than any other living man, soon became known. 

All his plans for going to the Congo were made, and he had gone toBrussels to take leave of the King of the Belgians when a telegram cameto him from the English Government. 

"Come back to London by evening train, " it said. And, leaving all hisluggage behind him, Gordon went. 

Next morning he interviewed Lord Wolseley and some members of theCabinet. He was asked if he would undertake a mission to the Soudan, to try to resettle affairs there, to bring away the Egyptian garrisons, and to divide, if possible, the country amongst the petty sultans whomhe thought strong and wise enough to keep order. 

Gordon was ready to go, and, to go at once. "I would give my life forthese poor people of the Soudan, " he said. 

Late that afternoon he started. 

Lord Wolseley has told the story of his going:--

"There he stood, in a tall silk hat and frock coat. I offered to sendhim anything he wanted. 

"'Don't want anything, ' he said. 

"'But you've got no clothes. '

"'I'll go as I am!' he said, and he meant it. 

"He never had any money; he always gave it away. I know once he had£7000. It all went in the establishment of a ragged school for boys. 

"I asked him if he had any cash. 

"'No, ' was his calm reply. 'When I left Brussels I had to borrow £25from the King to pay my hotel bill with. '

"'Very well, ' I said, 'I'll try and get you some, and meet you at therailway station with it. '

"I went round to the various clubs, and got £300 in gold. I gave themoney to Colonel Stewart, who went with him: Gordon was not to betrusted with it. A week or so passed by, when I had a letter fromStewart. He said, 'You remember the £300 you gave me? When we arrivedat Port Said a great crowd came out to cheer Gordon. Amongst them wasan old Sheikh to whom Gordon was much attached, and who had become poorand blind. Gordon got the money, and gave the whole of it to him!'" [1]

Before he started, he gave away some trinkets and things that heprized. It was as if he knew something of what lay before him. 

At Charing Cross, the Duke of Cambridge (who had known him since he wasa merry little boy at Corfu), Lord Wolseley, and others, came to bidhim Godspeed. 

He took with him Colonel Donald Stewart, whom he had chosen as hismilitary secretary. Even in the rush before the train started he foundtime to say to one of Colonel Stewart's relations: "Be sure that hewill not go into any danger which I do not share, and I am sure thatwhen I am in danger he will not be far behind. "

When, on January 18, 1884, Gordon went out to the Soudan like one ofthe Crusaders of old, all England was proud and glad. 

In Egypt the people were gladder still. 

Said the Arabs who had served under him: "The Mahdi's hordes will meltaway like dew, and the Pretender will be left like a small man standingalone, until he is forced to flee back to his island of Abbas. "

The Khedive again made him Governor-General of the Soudan, and, on the26th of January 1884, Gordon started for Khartoum. 

At Khartoum the people were in a panic. Colonel Coëtlogan had histroops in readiness for flight. The rich people had already escaped. The poor who had not fled were in terror lest the Mahdi and his hostsmight come any day and massacre them. 

Across the desert spread the telegraph message: "_General Gordon iscoming to Khartoum_. "

"_You are men, not women. Be not afraid; I am coming, _" followedGordon's own message to the terrified garrison. 

More swiftly than ever before, he crossed the lonely desert. Manyskeletons of men and of camels, of oxen and of horses, now laybleaching in the scorching sun on that dreary waste of treelessdesolation. 

On 18th February he reached Khartoum, and was greeted as theirdeliverer by the people, who flocked around him in hundreds, trying tokiss his hands and feet. 

"I come without soldiers, " he said to them, "but with God on my side, to redress the evils of the land. "

At once he was ready, as in past days, to listen to tales of wrong fromthe poorest, and to try to set them right. He had all the whips andinstruments of torture that Egyptian rulers had used piled up outsidethe Palace and burned. In the gaol he found two hundred men, women, and children lying in chains and in the most dismal plight. Some wereinnocent, many were prisoners of war. Of many their gaolers could giveno reason for their being there. One woman had been imprisoned forfifteen years for a crime committed when she was a child. 

Gordon had their chains struck off, and set them free. At nightfall hehad a bonfire made of the prison, and men, women, and children dancedround it in the red light of the flames, laughing and clapping theirhands. 

All the sick in the city he sent by the river down to Egypt. 

In Khartoum itself, by the mercy of its Governor, peace soon reigned. 

"Gordon is working wonders, " was the message Mr. Power sent to England. 

But the Mahdi's power was daily growing, and he feared no one. WhenGordon sent him messages of peace he sent back insolent answers, calling upon Gordon to become a Mussulman, and to come and serve theMahdi. 

"If Egypt is to be quiet, the Mahdi must be smashed up, " Gordontelegraphed to the English Government. 

By means of his steamers he laid in stores. The defences of Khartoumhe strengthened by mines and wire entanglements. He made some steamersbullet-proof, and on 24th August was able to write that they were doing"splendid work. " His poor "sheep, " as he called his troops, were beingturned into tried soldiers. "You see, " he wrote, "when you have steamon, the men can't run away, and must go into action. "

Daily, from the top of a tower that he had built, he would gaze longwith his glass down the river and into the country round. From therehe could see if the Mahdi's armies were approaching, or if help werecoming to save Khartoum and the Soudan. All the time he kept up thehearts of the people, and encouraged work at the school and everywhereelse. 

In his journal he wrote: "I toss up in my mind, whether, if the placeis to be taken, to blow up the Palace and all in it, or else to betaken, and, with God's help, to maintain the faith, and if necessarysuffer for it (which is most probable). The blowing up of the Palaceis the simplest, while the other means long and weary humiliation andsuffering of all sorts. I think I shall elect for the last, not fromfear of death, but because the former is, in a way, taking things outof God's hands. "

"Haunting the Palace are a lot of splendid hawks. I often wonderwhether they are destined to pick out my eyes. "

Gradually the Mahdi's forces were gathering round the city. Theirdrums rang in the ears of the besieged like the sound of a gatheringstorm. The outlying villages were besieged, and many of thosevillagers went over to the enemy. In some cases Gordon managed todrive back the rebels from the parts they attacked, and bring back armsand stores taken from them. More often the troops that were expectedto defend Khartoum put Gordon to shame by their feebleness andcowardice, and suffered miserable defeat. Once, when attacking theMahdists, five of Gordon's own commanders deserted, and helped to drivetheir own soldiers back to Khartoum. 

As the year wore on, the siege came closer. Daily the Palace and theMission House were shelled, and men were killed as they walked in thestreets. 

Money was scarce, and Gordon had little bank-notes made and used inplace of money, so that business still went on. But food grew scarcerthan money. Biscuits were the officers' chief food; dhoora that of themen. 

Again and again news was sent to him: "The English are coming. "

Again and again he found that the English army that was to relieveKhartoum had not yet started. 

"The English are coming!" mocked the dervishes. 

Day by day, Gordon's glass would sweep the steely river and the yellowsand for the first sight of the men who were coming to save him and hispeople. 

At last, with sinking heart, he wrote: "The Government having abandonedus, we can only trust in God. "

"When our provisions, which we have, at a stretch, for two months, areeaten, we must fall, " wrote, to the _Times_, Frank Power, a brave manand a true friend of Gordon. 

In April the telegraph wires were cut by the enemy. After that, newsfrom England was only rarely to be had, and only through messengers whowere not often to be trusted. 

Still hoping that an English army was coming, Gordon determined to sendhis steamers half way to meet it. It meant that his garrison would beweaker, should the Mahdi make any great attack, but Gordon felt thatEngland _could_ not fail him, and that in a very short time thesteamers would return, bringing a splendid reinforcement. 

On September 10th, three steamers, with Colonel Stewart and Frank Powerin command, sailed down the Nile. 

Gordon was left the only Englishman in Khartoum. 

"I am left alone . . . But not alone, " he wrote. 

The steamer with Stewart and Power on board ran aground. The crew wastreacherously taken by a native sheikh, and Stewart, Power, and almostall the others were cruelly murdered and their bodies thrown into theNile. 

The news of the death of his two friends, and the ruin of his plan tohasten on the relief of Khartoum, cut Gordon's brave heart to the quick. 

Before Mr. Power left, Gordon had given him a little book that heloved. It is called _The Dream of S. Gerontius_. Gordon had markedmany passages in it. 

Here are some:--

 "_Pray for me, O my friends. _"

 "Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled . . . " "Into thy hands O Lord, into Thy hands . . . "

So it seemed that even then Gordon knew that Death was drawing nearhim, and was greeting with a fearless face the martyrdom that he wassoon to endure. 

Yet all the while he never wavered, and his bravery seemed to givecourage to the feeblest hearted. 

He who had never taken any pride in decorations or in medals--saveone--tried to cheer his soldiers by having a decoration made anddistributed--"three classes: gold, silver, pewter. "

A Circassian in the Egyptian Service, speaking of Gordon in afteryears, said: "He never seemed to sleep. He was always working andlooking after the people. "

In the early days of those dark months, Frank Power had written of himthat all day he was cheering up others, but that through the night heheard his footfall overhead, backwards and forwards, backwards andforwards, sleepless, broken in heart, bearing on his soul the burden ofthose he had no power to save. 

At dawn he slept. All day he went the rounds, cheering up the people, seeing to the comfort of every one, feeding the starving as well as hecould. For two days at a time he would go without food, that hisportion might go to others. They were living on roots and herbs whenthe siege was done. 

All the night he spent on the top of his tower, watching and praying. Many times in the day did men see the spare figure standing on thatyellow-white tower, staring, with eyes that grew tired with longing, into the far-away desert, looking for the help that never came. 

[Illustration: Looking for the help that never came]

But, after many delays, an English army was actually on the march. 

It was a race of about 1800 miles up the Nile from the sea--a racebetween Victory and the Salvation of the beleaguered city and itsdefender on one side, and Defeat, Death, and the Mahdi on the other. 

Lord Wolseley, who commanded the expedition, offered £100 to theregiment that covered the distance first. 

Some fierce battles were fought on the way, and many brave lives werelost. 

On 14th December 1884, Gordon wrote to his sister: "This may be thelast letter you will receive from me, for we are on our last legs, owing to the delay of the expedition. However, God rules all, and, asHe will rule to His glory and our welfare, His will be done. . . . 

"I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence, I have '_tried_ to domy duty. '"

On the same day he wrote in his journal:

"I have done my best for the honour of our country. Good-bye. --C. G. Gordon. "

The last message of all was one that bore no date, and was smuggled outof Khartoum in a cartridge case by one who had been his servant:--

"What I have gone through I cannot describe. The Almighty God willhelp me. "

In the camp of the Mahdi lay an Austrian prisoner, Slatin Pasha. 

On the 15th of January 1885 he heard vigorous firing from Khartoum. Gordon and his garrison were preventing the Mahdists from keeping intheir possession a fort which they had just taken. 

In the days that followed, the firing went on, but Gordon's ammunitionwas nearly done, and he and his men were weak and spent with hunger. 

On the night of the 25th Slatin heard "the deafening discharge ofthousands of rifles and guns; this lasted for a few minutes, then onlyoccasional shots were heard, and now all was quiet again. "

He lay wide awake, wondering if this was the great attack on Khartoumthat the Mahdi had always planned. 

A few hours later, three black soldiers entered the prison bearingsomething in a bloody cloth. They threw it at the prisoner's feet, andhe saw that it was the head of General Gordon. 

When the relieving army reached Khartoum, they found the Mahdi'sbanners of black and green flaunting from its walls, and the guns thathad so bravely defended it turned against them. They had come too late. 

A traitor in the camp had hastened the end, and Gordon had fallen, hacked to pieces, while trying to rally his troops. 

For hours after he fell, massacre and destruction went on in the city. 

Fourteen years later, Lord Kitchener and his soldiers avenged thatmassacre, and marched into Khartoum. 

The Mahdi was dead. He who boasted that he was immortal had died frompoison given him by a woman whom he had cruelly used. The Mahdi'ssuccessors had fallen before a conquering English army. 

When the Mahdists sacked and burned the Governor's Palace, they forgotto destroy the trees and the rose bushes that Gordon with his own handshad planted. 

And in a new and lovely garden, beside a new Palace from which a braveScottish soldier rules the Soudan, the roses grow still, fragrant andbeautiful. 

Khartoum is a great town now, peaceful and prosperous. 

The Gordon College, where the boys of the Soudan are taught all thatEnglish schoolboys learn, is the monument that England gave to a hero. A statue of him stands in one of the squares, and to it came a poor oldblack woman to whom Gordon had been very kind. 

"God be praised!" she cried, "Gordon Pasha has come again!"

For a whole day she sat beside the statue, longing for a look from himwho had never before passed her without a friendly nod. 

"Is he tired? or what is it?" she asked. 

After many visits, she came home one evening quite happy. 

"The Pasha has nodded his head to me!" she said. 

And so, in the hearts of the people of the Soudan, Gordon Pasha stilllives. 

Winds carry across the desert the scent of the roses that he planted, and that drop their fragrant leaves near where his blood was shed. 

And to the Eastern country for whose sake he died, and to our own landfor whose honour his life was given, he has left a memory that must belike the roses--for ever fragrant, and for ever sweet. 

[1] _Strand Magazine_, May 1892. By kind permission of Messrs. Newnes.