he general situation at Khartoum when General
Gordon was ordered, almost single-handed, to save it; and not merely
to rescue its garrison, pronounced by its commander to be partly
unreliable and wholly inadequate, but other garrisons scattered
throughout the regions held by the Mahdi and his victorious legions. A
courageous man could not have been charged with cowardice if he had
shrunk back from such a forlorn hope, and declined to take on his
shoulders the responsibility that properly devolved on the commander
on the spot. A prudent man would at least have insisted that his
instructions should be clear, and that the part his Government and
country were to play was to be as strictly defined and as obligatory
on them as his own. But while Gordon's courage was of such a quality
that I believe no calculation of odds or difficulties ever entered
into his view, his prudence never possessed the requisite amount of
suspicion to make him provide against the contingencies of absolute
betrayal by those who sent him, or of that change in party convenience
and tactics which induced those who first thought his mission most
advantageous as solving a difficulty, or at least putting off a
trouble, to veer round to the conclusion that his remaining at
Khartoum, his honourable but rigid resolve not to return without the
people he went to save, was a distinct breach of contract, and a
serious offence.

The state of feeling at Khartoum was one verging on panic. The richest
townsmen had removed their property and families to Berber. Colonel de
Coetlogon had the river boats with steam up ready to commence the
evacuation, and while everyone thought that the place was doomed, the
telegraph instrument was eagerly watched for the signal to begin the
flight. The tension could not have lasted much longer--without the
signal the flight would have begun--when on 24th January the brief
message arrived: "General Gordon is coming to Khartoum." The effect of
that message was electrical. The panic ceased, confidence was
restored, the apathy of the Cairo authorities became a matter of no
importance, for England had sent her greatest name as a pledge of her
intended action, and the unreliable and insufficient garrison pulled
itself together for one of the most honourable and brilliant defences
in the annals of military sieges. Yet it was full time. Two months had
been wasted, and, as Mr Power said, "the fellows in Lucknow did not
look more anxiously for