nd yet he
might well have taken even a larger sum. One who knew how deeply the
empire was indebted to him, wrote, "Can China tell how much she is
indebted to Colonel Gordon? Would 20,000,000 taels repay the actual
service he has rendered to the empire?"

Gordon returned home to England, and, avoiding all the flattering notice
that was continually thrust upon him, he retired to his work at
Gravesend, where, from 1865 to 1871, he labored at the construction of
the Thames Defenses.

Here he passed six of the happiest years of his life--in active work, in
deep seclusion from the world of wealth and fashion, but in a state of
happiness and peace. His house was school, hospital, and almshouse, and
he lived entirely for others. "The poor, the sick, the unfortunate were
welcome, and never did supplicant knock vainly at his door."

Gutter children were his especial care. These he cleansed and clothed,
and the boys he trained for a life at sea. His evening classes were his
delight, and he read and taught his children with the same ardor with
which he had led the Chinese troops into battle. For the boys he found
suitable places on board vessels respectably owned, and he never lost
sight of his _proteges_. A large map of the world, stuck over with pins,
showed him at a glance where he had last heard from one of these rescued
waifs. "God bless the Kernel," was chalked upon many a wall in
Gravesend; and well might the poor bless the man who personified to them
the life and daily walk of one who "had been with Jesus." To them he was
the "Good Samaritan," pouring in oil and wine; and they blessed and
reverenced him, and gave him a love which he valued more than royal
gifts.

We must, however, hasten on, and see him transferred from Gravesend to
the Danube, and thence to the Soudan. He succeeded Sir Samuel Baker in
the government of these distant territories in Egypt in 1873. The
Khedive Ismail offered him L10,000 a year, but he would only accept
L2,000, as he knew the money would have to be extorted from the wretched
fellaheen. His principal work was to conquer the insurgent slave-dealers
who had taken possession of the country and enslaved the inhabitants.
The lands south of Khartoum had long been occupied by European traders,
who dealt in ivory, and had thus "opened up the country." This opening
up was a terrible scourge to the natives, because these European
traffickers soon began to find out that "black ivory" was more valuable