The Story of General Gordon Part 9

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

"There he stood, in a tall silk hat and frock coat. I offered to send him 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 25 from the King to pay my hotel bill with.'

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

"I went round to the various clubs, and got 300 in gold. I gave the money to Colonel Stewart, who went with him: Gordon was not to be trusted with it. A week or so pa.s.sed by, when I had a letter from Stewart. He said, 'You remember the 300 you gave me? When we arrived at Port Said a great crowd came out to cheer Gordon. Amongst them was an old Sheikh to whom Gordon was much attached, and who had become poor and 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 he prized. 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 was a merry little boy at Corfu), Lord Wolseley, and others, came to bid him G.o.dspeed.

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

When, on January 18, 1884, Gordon went out to the Soudan like one of the 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 melt away like dew, and the Pretender will be left like a small man standing alone, until he is forced to flee back to his island of Abbas."

The Khedive again made him Governor-General of the Soudan, and, on the 26th of January 1884, Gordon started for Khartoum.

At Khartoum the people were in a panic. Colonel Coetlogan had his troops in readiness for flight. The rich people had already escaped.

The poor who had not fled were in terror lest the Mahdi and his hosts might come any day and ma.s.sacre them.

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

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

More swiftly than ever before, he crossed the lonely desert. Many skeletons of men and of camels, of oxen and of horses, now lay bleaching in the scorching sun on that dreary waste of treeless desolation.

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

"I come without soldiers," he said to them, "but with G.o.d 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 from the poorest, and to try to set them right. He had all the whips and instruments of torture that Egyptian rulers had used piled up outside the Palace and burned. In the gaol he found two hundred men, women, and children lying in chains and in the most dismal plight. Some were innocent, many were prisoners of war. Of many their gaolers could give no reason for their being there. One woman had been imprisoned for fifteen years for a crime committed when she was a child.

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

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. When Gordon sent him messages of peace he sent back insolent answers, calling upon Gordon to become a Mussulman, and to come and serve the Mahdi.

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

By means of his steamers he laid in stores. The defences of Khartoum he strengthened by mines and wire entanglements. He made some steamers bullet-proof, and on 24th August was able to write that they were doing "splendid work." His poor "sheep," as he called his troops, were being turned into tried soldiers. "You see," he wrote, "when you have steam on, 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 long with his gla.s.s down the river and into the country round. From there he could see if the Mahdi's armies were approaching, or if help were coming to save Khartoum and the Soudan. All the time he kept up the hearts of the people, and encouraged work at the school and everywhere else.

In his journal he wrote: "I toss up in my mind, whether, if the place is to be taken, to blow up the Palace and all in it, or else to be taken, and, with G.o.d's help, to maintain the faith, and if necessary suffer for it (which is most probable). The blowing up of the Palace is the simplest, while the other means long and weary humiliation and suffering of all sorts. I think I shall elect for the last, not from fear of death, but because the former is, in a way, taking things out of G.o.d's hands."

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

Gradually the Mahdi's forces were gathering round the city. Their drums rang in the ears of the besieged like the sound of a gathering storm. The outlying villages were besieged, and many of those villagers went over to the enemy. In some cases Gordon managed to drive back the rebels from the parts they attacked, and bring back arms and stores taken from them. More often the troops that were expected to defend Khartoum put Gordon to shame by their feebleness and cowardice, and suffered miserable defeat. Once, when attacking the Mahdists, five of Gordon's own commanders deserted, and helped to drive their own soldiers back to Khartoum.

As the year wore on, the siege came closer. Daily the Palace and the Mission House were sh.e.l.led, and men were killed as they walked in the streets.

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

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

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

"The English are coming!" mocked the dervishes.

Day by day, Gordon's gla.s.s would sweep the steely river and the yellow sand for the first sight of the men who were coming to save him and his people.

At last, with sinking heart, he wrote: "The Government having abandoned us, we can only trust in G.o.d."

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

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

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

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

Gordon was left the only Englishman in Khartoum.

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