"Give it me--give it me."
Then with a rapid gesture Gordon unbuckled his sword from the belt and
handed it to the General.
The General held it in both his hands, which were vibrating like the
parts of an engine from the moving power within, while he said, in the
same half-stifled voice as before--
"You have had the greatest opportunity that ever came to an English
soldier and--thrown it away. You have humiliated your father, outraged
the love of your intended wife, and insulted England. Therefore you are
a traitor!"
Gordon quivered visibly at that word, and seeing this, the General
hurled it at him again.
"A traitor, I say. A traitor who has consorted with the enemies of his
country." With that he drew the sword from its scabbard, broke it
across his knee, and flung the fragments at Gordon's feet.
Helena turned and fled from the room in agony at the harrowing scene,
and the Consul-General, unable to bear the sight of it, rose and walked
to the window, his face broken up with pain as no one had ever seen it
before.
Then the General, who had been worked up to a towering rage by his own
words and acts, lost himself utterly, and saying--
"You are unfit to wear the decorations of an English soldier. Take them
off, take them off!" he laid hold of Gordon's medals--the Distinguished
Service Order, the South African Medal with its four clasps, the British
Soudan Medal, the Medjidieh, and the Khedive's star--and tore them from
his tunic, ripping pieces of the cloth away with them, and threw them on
the ground.