n knew that to leave a thing
half done was only to invite the danger to reappear. Suleiman had
retired with his 1500 men to Shaka, the followers of Zebehr from all
sides throughout the province would flock to his standard, and in a
little time he would be more formidable and hostile than before. Four
days after Suleiman left Dara, Gordon set out for the same place, at
the head of four companies, and after a six days' march through
terrible heat he reached Shaka. The slave-hunters had had no time to
recover their spirits, they were all completely cowed and very
submissive; and Suleiman craved favour at the hands of the man against
whose life he had only a few days before been plotting. Unfortunately
Gordon could not remain at Shaka, to attend in person to the
dispersion of Suleiman's band, and after his departure that young
leader regained his confidence, and resorted to his hostile and
ambitious designs; but the success of General Gordon's plans in the
summer of 1877 was complete, and sufficed to greatly diminish the
gravity of the peril when, twelve months later, Suleiman broke out
afresh, and fell by the hands of Gessi.

While General Gordon was facing these personal dangers, and coping
with difficulties in a manner that has never been surpassed, and that
will stand as an example to all time of how the energy, courage, and
attention to detail of an individual will compensate for bad troops
and deficient resources, he was experiencing the bitter truth that no
one can escape calumny. The arm-chair reformers of London were not at
all pleased with his methods, and they were quite shocked when they
heard that General Gordon, whom they affected to regard as the nominee
of the Anti-Slavery Society, and not as the responsible lieutenant of
a foreign potentate, was in the habit, not merely of restoring
fugitive slaves to their lawful owners, but even of purchasing slaves
with his own and the Government money, in order to convert them into
soldiers. From their narrow point of view, it seemed to them that
these steps were a direct encouragement of the slave-trade, and they
denounced Gordon's action with an extraordinary, but none the less
bitter, ignorance of the fact that he was employing the only practical
means of carrying out the mission which, in addition to his
administrative duties, had been practically imposed on him as the
representative of civilization. These good but misinformed persons
must have believed that the Eg