Gordon imagined that
he would be able to turn his enemies into allies. As to his own life,
his faith in God was too real and too firm for him to take that into
consideration. Till his appointed task was finished he was perfectly
safe, and after that he would, in his own words, 'leave much weariness
for perfect peace.'

Thus he went about his work with complete unconcern, and one day arrived
at a discontented place an hour and a half before the few hundred
soldiers that formed his army. Nobody expected him, and when they saw a
man in a uniform shining with gold, flying towards them on the swiftest
camel they had ever beheld, and with only one companion, they were
filled with amazement. Nothing would have been easier than to kill
Gordon; but somehow they never even thought of it, and soon the people
of Darfour and the neighbouring tribes came in and submitted to him. On
the way he was welcomed gladly by the garrisons of the various little
towns, some of whom had received no pay for three years. These
half-starved men, being in their weak condition even more useless than
the ordinary Egyptian soldier, he sent eastwards to be disbanded, and
with an army of five hundred untrustworthy troops, who did not possess a
single cannon, and whose arms were old-fashioned flint-lock guns, he had
to prepare to face the attack of thousands of rebels against the
Egyptian government.

Luckily, for some reason, the rebel army melted away without a shot
being fired, and the danger being passed the Egyptians pushed on to
Dara.

[Illustration: They saw a man in uniform shining with gold flying
towards them.]

Now came the moment to which Gordon had long been looking forward--the
life and death struggle with the slave-dealers, headed by Suleiman, son
of Zebehr, who had armed six thousand of his own slaves, and could
besides summon the help of five thousand good soldiers. How thankfully,
then, Gordon must have greeted the arrival of a powerful tribe seven
thousand strong, who, having suffered bitterly from the slave-traders,
were thirsting for revenge. That after a hard fight the victory remained
with Gordon was owing only to the support of this and other friendly
tribes, for the Egyptians 'crowded into the stockade' and hid there,
safe, as they hoped, from stray spears or wandering bullets.

It is impossible to follow all Gordon's movements during this campaign,
when in the heat of summer, near the equator, he darted about on his
camel f