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 Khar