paused on his way to see Rome. Once in London it was the old story.
Invitations rained on him, only to be refused. To escape from them he
rushed off to Lausanne for peace. But peace and Gordon had little to do
with each other, and he soon received an urgent request from the
ministers of Cape Colony to allow himself to be appointed commander of
the colonial forces. This, however, Gordon refused at once. The war with
the Zulus was only just over, and Gordon, who on all questions involving
the well-being of nations, was very keen-sighted, may well have noted
signs of unrest throughout the whole of South Africa. His health had
been severely tried by all he had gone through, and he needed rest
before he could take active employment.
So he returned to England, and in May, much to everyone's surprise,
accepted the post of secretary to the new viceroy of India, lord Ripon.
But no sooner had the viceregal party reached Bombay than Gordon found
that the work he had to do was not the sort he was suited for. Not
because he thought that anything was beneath his dignity--the man who
had cleaned his own gun and cooked his own food in the Soudan was never
likely to feel that--but his career, as he ought to have known before,
had unfitted him to cope with the minute details bound up with Indian
life, and the immense importance given to the distinctions of caste.
Therefore four days after the ship reached Bombay he resigned,
expressing his regrets for the mistake he had made, and thanking lord
Ripon most warmly for the kindness shown him. His passage money and all
the expenses to which his appointment had put the new government--for
the Liberals had lately come into power--he instantly repaid.
* * * * *
Two days later he received a telegram from sir Robert Hart, director of
the customs in China, begging him to take the first ship to Tientsin,
where his services were badly needed. As his request to the English War
Office for six months' leave was refused, he replied that his object in
going to China was to prevent a war which was likely to break out
between that country and Russia, and therefore, if the permission asked
was not granted, he should be forced to throw up his commission in the
queen's service.
On receipt of this message the government allowed him to go, and for
three months he worked hard, and not only contrived, as he hoped, to
prevent the war with Russia, but to check the revolt of Li Hung Chang,
who desired to place the crown on his own head.
Having accomplished what he intended, he found himself in London in
October, and in 1881 went out to the island of Mauritius, in the Indian
Ocean, to command the engineers.
At last he rested from the heavy responsibilities of the last few years,
though he worked as he always must do, and, now a major-general, in
April 1882 set sail for the Cape, where the governor of the colony, sir
Hercules Robinson, wanted his advice on the settlement and
administration of Basutoland. But when Gordon arrived he found his views
on the subject so totally different from those of the men in power that
he resigned and left, and from London he carried out the great longing
of his life--a visit to the Holy Land. Few people knew and loved their
Bibles like Gordon, and every stone in Palestine was full of interest
to him. Here he was alone and quiet, respecting the faith of others, and
therefore causing them to respect his; talking and praying with those of
different religions, teaching them and learning from them; preparing
himself, as the Master whom he served had also done, for the fiery trial
through which he was to pass.
* * * * *
All this time the king of the Belgians had been offering him the command
of an expedition his majesty was anxious to send to the Congo, and
continued to press the matter in spite of the refusal of Mr. Gladstone,
then prime minister, to lend him Gordon to lead it. On January 1, 1884,
Gordon went over to Brussels to talk over affairs with the king, and
while he was there the English government suddenly decided to send him
at once to the Soudan, where matters were in a very threatening state.
Since Gordon had left the country, four years before, Arabi pasha had
revolted, and been crushed at Tel-el-Kebir, and a dervish in the Soudan,
Mohammed Ahmed by name, had made himself famous by proclaiming himself
mahdi, the expected prophet of the whole Mahometan world. Thousands
flocked to the standard that he raised, and his armed escort stood with
drawn swords in his presence. The Egyptian governor-general summoned him
to Khartoum to answer for his proceedings, but the mahdi answered that
he was master of the country and obeyed no one. The troops despatched
against him he always defeated, and when a new governor-general and a
fresh army gave him battle they were utterly destroyed. Obeid in Darfour
surrendered after a five months' siege, and, flushed with success, he
carried all before him.
In June 1883 colonel Hicks was given by the Egyptian government the
military command at Khartoum, with ten thousand men and thirty guns;
but he had no knowledge of the country where he had to fight, and fell
an easy prey to the mahdi's army, which was ten times as numerous as his
own. The tribes of the eastern Soudan joined the victor's banner, and
here, while Gordon was on his way to Khartoum, Baker pasha was defeated
by Osman Digna, a slave-dealer of Suakim.
* * * * *
On January 17, 1884, Gordon, who was in Brussels, received a telegram
from lord Wolseley, bidding him come over to London by the evening
train. He started at once, and reached London early in the morning, and
at twelve o'clock was taken by Wolseley to the Cabinet Council.
'He went in,' writes Gordon, 'and talked to the ministers, and came back
and said, "Her majesty's government want you to undertake this. The
government are determined to evacuate the Soudan, for they will not
undertake to guarantee its safety. Will you go and do it?" I said,
"Yes!" He said, "Go in." I went in and saw them. They said, "Did
Wolseley tell you our orders?" I said, "Yes." I said, "You will not
guarantee the future government of the Soudan, and you wish me to go up
to evacuate now?" They said, "Yes," and it was over, and I left at
8 P.M. for Calais.'
He was seen off from the station by lord Wolseley and by lord
Hartington, afterwards the duke of Devonshire, who always stood loyally
by him, and repeatedly urged that help must be sent instantly, while his
colleagues in the Cabinet waited to see how things would drift, till the
time for help was past.
On January 26, the day which a year hence was to witness his death,
Gordon, with colonel Stewart, was in Cairo, where he spent two busy
days. The first news that greeted him was the success of the mahdi in
all directions, and that the Mahometans in Syria and in Arabia would
probably rise against their rulers. Yet he does not seem to have
understood any better than the English and Egyptian governments what a
terrific force the man really was, not so much in himself, but because
he stood in the minds of hundreds of thousands for the deliverer who
would aid them to shake off a yoke under which they groaned. 'I do not
believe in the advance of the mahdi,' says Gordon a few days later; 'he
is nephew to my old guide in Darfour, who was a very good fellow,' and
on several occasions he shows that he had no idea as yet of the task
that lay before him, and considered the mahdi a mere puppet in the hands
of the slave-owners, who had joined him to a man. While in Cairo he did
his best to make arrangements to ensure good government. He desired to
see Nubar pasha, of whom he thought highly, placed in power, and the
dangerous Zebehr banished to Cyprus, but Tewfik the khedive would listen
to neither proposal. So, to the horror of some of the anti-slavery
societies in England, who knew nothing of the supreme difficulties of
Gordon's position, the newly appointed governor-general of the Soudan
asked to take Zebehr with him, and keep him under his own eye. 'He is
the ablest man in the Soudan,' said Gordon afterwards, 'a capital
general and a good governor, and with his help I could have crushed the
mahdi.' But Gordon's friends at Cairo had no faith in Zebehr's loyalty,
and much in his hatred of Gordon, and at their entreaty the plan was
given up. Yet Gordon did not sleep one night in Khartoum without knowing
he was right, and writing to beg for Zebehr.
* * * * *
Forty-eight hours after reaching Cairo Gordon started with Stewart and
four Egyptian officers for Khartoum.
'I go with every confidence and trust in God,' he wrote to Wolseley a
few hours before he set out, in the spirit in which he lived and died,
and in twenty days he was at Khartoum, where the whole population came
out to welcome him.
With the help of the garrison of five thousand men Gordon began to
fortify the town, and to throw up proper defences for Omdurman, on the
left bank of the river. Provisions were stored, and a telegraph wire
rigged up between the outworks and his palace, where he spent hours
every day in sweeping the horizon with his field-glass. Once at Khartoum
he began to realise what a force the mahdi had become. In March he wrote
to the English government, 'I shall be caught in Khartoum, and even if I
was mean enough to escape, I've not the power.' He begs both for men and
money, but no notice was taken of his letter; so in April he telegraphs
to sir Evelyn Baring, the English agent in Cairo, saying that he had
asked sir Samuel Baker to try and obtain £30,000 from English and
American millionaires to enable him to get three thousand Turkish
soldiers, 'who would settle the mahdi for ever. I do not see the fun of
being caught here to walk about the streets as a dervish with sandalled
feet,' he goes on; 'not that I shall ever be taken alive.'
He had been sent expressly to evacuate the Soudan, yet he was not
allowed to do it when it came to the point, and, as usually happens,
attempts at compromise proved failures. An expedition was despatched to
Suakim, and two bloody battles were fought, but the only result of these
was to inflame the zeal of the mahdi's followers and to enable him to
capture Berber, the key of the Soudan.
In Khartoum Gordon was using all his skill to fit the place to stand a
siege, for he speedily saw that his garrison of one thousand Soudanese
were all he had to rely on, the three thousand Egyptians and
Bashi-Bazouks being worse than useless. Later his troops amounted to
about double the number, and the population which he had to feed he
reckoned at forty thousand. The provisions, he estimated, would last for
five months; but in the end they had to do for ten, and up to the very
last, when all else was eaten, there was still some corn left in the
granary.
* * * * *
While the river was yet open, and before the Arabs had cut off all
communication between Khartoum and the outer world, Gordon managed to
send away some old and helpless soldiers, various government officials,
and two thousand three hundred refugees, who had fled to the town for
safety. Everything he could think of was done for their comfort; and in
order to prevent the poor black women and children from feeling strange
and frightened, he ordered colonel Duncan to ask a German woman living
at Korosko to be ready to meet and help them. In Khartoum itself there
were no fevers or pestilence, and food was given daily to the very poor.
It was in the middle of March that the town, with its three rings of
defence, was invested by the Arabs; but when the time came for the Nile
to rise it was easy for Gordon to send his steamers up and down both
branches of the river, and to attack the Arab camps. Besides those boats
he had already, he built some new ones, and kept his men busy in the
workshops of the arsenal. But when April came, and there were no answers
to his appeals, he wrote home that the matter _must_ be settled before
the Nile fell in November, when the river route would become not only
difficult but dangerous.
* * * * *
In this way the months went on, and in England his friends were doing
all they could to help him, though vainly. Lord Wolseley repeatedly
urged on the Government the need of sending out a relief force, and in a
letter of July 24, to Gordon's brother, he writes that if he was allowed
to start immediately he could be at Dongola by October 15, and could go
all the way to Khartoum by the river. Lord Hartington, too, never forgot
Gordon, but the rest of the Cabinet turned a deaf ear; they had other
things to think about.
The next move came from the French consul, monsieur Herbin, who was
inside Khartoum. He suggested to Gordon that now that it was September,
and the Nile had risen to its greatest height, the cataracts would be
covered to a depth of thirty or forty feet; therefore it would be quite
easy for a small steamer such as the _Abbas_ to make its way to Dongola,
and from there to send on letters and despatches to Cairo. Gordon
approved of the plan, and Stewart offered to command the little force of
forty or fifty soldiers--all that could be spared to go with it. On
board were some Greeks, monsieur Herbin himself, Stewart, and Power the
'Times' correspondent, the only two friends Gordon had. How he must have
longed to go with them. But that being impossible he put the thought out
of his mind, and gave them most careful directions as to the precautions
they were to take. But on their return journey Gordon's orders were
neglected, the steamer was taken by the mahdi's troops, and all on board
put to death, Stewart among them.
* * * * *
Thus Gordon was left alone in Khartoum, without a creature to share his
responsibility or to help him in his work. From henceforward he was
obliged to see to everything himself, and make sure that his orders were
carried out.
From his journal and letters, which we have up to December 14, we know
all that was going on inside the town: the measures of defence; the
decoration which he invented to reward the soldiers for their courage or
fidelity, an eight-pointed star with a grenade in the centre, and
consisting of three classes, gold, silver, and pewter; the presence of
Slatin (later the sirdar) in the mahdi's camp, and the chains put upon
him. But in November the fighting grew fiercer; the mahdi cut all
communication between Khartoum, stretching from the Blue to the White
Nile, and Omdurman, on the right bank of the latter river. However,
though he took the town, he did not keep it long, for he was shelled out
of it; but day by day his forces crept closer, and Gordon, who had sent
his steamers down to Shendy to meet the relieving troops which he
thought were on their way, had no means of stopping the mahdi when he
began to transport his army from one bank of the Nile to the other, in
preparation for the last assault.
During the summer months Gordon had been cheered by the knowledge that
sir Gerald Graham was fighting Osman Digna and keeping him at bay, but
this was all the consolation he had.
'Up to this date,' he writes on October 29, 'nine people have come up as
reinforcements since Hicks's defeat, and not a penny of money.' Still,
for seven months not a man had deserted; but with the advance of the
mahdi many of the defenders of Khartoum might be seen stealing after
dark to his camp. He sent an envoy across the river to offer Gordon
honourable terms if he would surrender, knowing full well from the
papers which his spies had stolen from the steamer _Abbas_ what straits
the garrison were in. But Gordon, putting little faith in the word of
the mahdi, rejected the proposal and returned for answer, 'We can hold
out twelve years.'
* * * * *
By this time 'Relief Expedition No. 2, to save our national honour,' as
Gordon persisted in calling it, was on its way, and many of us can
recall with what sickening hearts we watched its daily progress. The
obstacles which had been foretold months before by both Gordon and
Wolseley proved even greater than they expected. The Nile had fallen,
and its cataracts, like staircases of rocks, were of course impassable,
and the transport of the boats was a terrible difficulty. Then, owing to
treachery, all the useful camels were spirited away, and only enough
could be collected to carry one thousand men across the desert. Sir
Herbert Stewart started first, and reached the wells of Jakdul on
January 3, and being obliged to halt there, as the camels were needed to
bring up other troops, he occupied the time in building a fort. On the
12th they all pushed on to Abou Klea, where they arrived on the 17th, to
find the mahdi awaiting them. Here two fierce battles were fought, in
one of which sir Herbert Stewart was mortally wounded. In each the mahdi
was defeated, but he proceeded to attack Metemmeh on the 21st, the
British force being now commanded by sir Charles Wilson, who was
unexpectedly reinforced during the battle by some troops on board
Gordon's four steamers, which were returning to Khartoum. Three days
later (January 24) Wilson started in two steamers for Khartoum,
ninety-five miles away, and the river was so low that it was necessary
to be very cautious. On the morning of the 25th one of the boats ran on
a rock, and could not be floated off till nine o'clock that night. As
soon as he possibly could Wilson got up steam again, but eight miles
from Khartoum a native hailed him from the bank. 'Khartoum has fallen!'
he said, 'and Gordon has been shot.'
Wilson would not believe it. To have failed when success was within his
grasp seemed too terrible to think of. It must be one of the mahdi's
devices to stop the advance of our troops, so he went on till he could
command a proper view of the town. The masses of black-robed dervishes
that filled the streets and crowded along the river bank told their own
tale, and, bowing his head, Wilson gave the signal to go back down the
river.
[Illustration: A shot ended his life.]
From Slatin pasha, then a captive in the mahdi's camp, we know how it
happened. Omdurman had fallen on the 13th, but Khartoum would
probably not have been assaulted so soon had not the mahdi suffered
such severe defeats at Abou Klea and at Abou Kru, three days later; then
he hurried back to Khartoum and again summoned Gordon to surrender. His
offer was refused, and addressing his men he informed them that during
the night they were to be conveyed across the river in boats, but that
if victory was to be theirs, absolute silence was necessary.
About half-past three in the morning they were all ready, and attacked
at the same moment both the east and west gates. The east held out for
some time, but the west gate soon gave way, and the rebels entered with
a rush, murdering every man they met. In an open space near the palace
they came up with Gordon, walking quietly in front of a little group of
people to take refuge at the Austrian consul's house. A shot ended his
life, and saved him from the tortures that men like the mahdi inflict on
their captives. Death, as we know, had no terrors for him. 'I am always
ready to die,' he had said to the king of Abyssinia nearly six years
before, 'and so far from fearing your putting me to death, you would
confer a favour on me, for you would deliver me from all the troubles
and misfortunes which the future may have in store.' Now death _had_
delivered him, yet none the less does his fate lie like a blot on the
men who sent him to his doom, and turned a deaf ear to his prayers for
help until it was too late. England was stricken with horror and grief
at the news, and showed her sorrow in the way which Gordon would have
chosen, not by erecting statues or buildings to his memory, but by
founding schools to help the little orphan boys whom he always loved.
But whatever bitterness may have been in the hearts of his friends
towards those who had sacrificed him, Gordon we can be sure would have
felt none.
'One wants some forgiveness oneself,' he said, when he pardoned Abou
Saoud, who had tried to betray him. 'And it is not a dear article.'
THE CRIME OF THEODOSIUS
Everyone who stops to visit the town of Trèves, or Trier, to give it its
German name, must be struck by the number and beauty of its ruins, which
give us some idea of the splendour of the city at the time that Ambrose
the Prefect lived there and ruled his province. About the city were
hills now covered with vines, and through an opening between them ran
the river Moselle. A wall with seven gates defended Trèves from the
German tribes on the east of the Rhine, but only one, the Porta Nigra,
or Black Gate, is left standing. Its cathedral, the oldest in Europe
north of the Alps, was founded in 375 A.D. by Valentinian I., who often
occupied the palace which was sacked and ruined a century later by Huns
and Franks. A great bridge spanned the Moselle, and outside the walls,
where the vineyards now climb the hills, was an amphitheatre which held
30,000 people, and when these came back, tired and dusty, from chariot
races or games, there were baths and warm water in the underground
galleries to make them clean and comfortable.
It was somewhere about the year 333 A.D. that a boy was born at Trèves
in the house of the governor, and called Ambrose, after his father. He
was the youngest of three children, his brother Satyrus being only a
little older than himself, while Marcellina, their sister, who was
nearly four, looked down upon the others as mere babies. Ambrose the
elder was a very important person indeed, for the emperor Constantine
had made him ruler, or prefect, of the whole of Europe west of the
Rhine, that is, of Spain, Gaul or France, and Britain. The prefect was a
good and just man, and the nations were happy under his sway; but he
died after a few years, and his wife, unfortunately, thought it wiser to
leave Trèves and take her children to Rome, where they could get the
best teaching and would become acquainted with their father's friends.
It was a long and difficult journey for a lady and two boys (Marcellina
had already gone to a convent in Rome), though they were rich enough to
travel in tolerable comfort. Even in summer the passage of the Alps was
hard enough, and the towering mountains, steep precipices, and rushing
rivers must have seemed strange and alarming to anyone fresh from the
fertile slopes of the Rhineland. But the boys were not frightened, only
deeply interested, and they quite forgot to be sorry at leaving their
old home in the excitement of what lay before them.
No doubt they had many adventures, or what they would have considered as
such, before they reached the corn-covered plains of Lombardy, and
stopped to rest in the city of Milan, whose name was hereafter to be
bound up for all time with that of little Ambrose. But we are not told
anything about their travels, and when they arrived in Rome they went
straight to the old house, which had been for generations in their
father's family. That family was famous in the annals of the city, and
had become Christian in the time of the persecution; but nowadays
Christians and pagans lived happily together, and divided the public
offices between them.
The children soon settled down in their new surroundings, and felt as if
they had lived all their lives in Rome. Marcellina they seldom or never
saw, and, however much her mother may have longed after her, she was
forced to content herself with her two boys and to take pride in their
success.
* * * * *
The prefect of Rome, Symmachus by name, had taken a great fancy to
Satyrus, in spite of the fact that the boy was brought up a Christian,
while he himself was a pagan. Symmachus shared with the Christian Probus
the chief authority in Rome, and while Satyrus was to be found in his
house during most of the hours when he was not attending, with his
brother, classes in Greek and Latin literature and in law, Ambrose was
no less frequently in that of Probus. Though this caused their mother to
spend many lonely evenings, she was well pleased, for both men bore a
high character, and would be able to help her boys in many ways that
were impossible to a woman. The two youths were very popular, pleasant,
and well-mannered, and with strong common-sense which proved useful in
saving them from pitfalls that might otherwise have been their ruin.
They had friends without number, but they liked no one's company so much
as each other's, and it was a sad moment for both when Symmachus gave
Satyrus a post under his own son, and the two young men set sail for
Asia Minor.