entire evacuation of the Sudan, and the limitation of Egyptian authority
to the strong position of the First Cataract at Assuan. This policy then
received the entire approval of the man who was to be alike the hero and
the martyr of that enterprise[381]. But how were the Egyptian garrisons
to be withdrawn? It was a point of honour not to let them be slaughtered
or enslaved by the cruel fanatics of the Mahdi. Yet under the lead of
Egyptian officers they would almost certainly suffer one of these fates.
A way of escape was suggested--by a London evening newspaper in the
first instance. The name of Gordon was renowned for justice and
hardihood all through the Sudan. Let this knight-errant be sent--so said
this Mentor of the Press--and his strange power over men would
accomplish the impossible. The proposal carried conviction everywhere,
and Lord Granville, who generally followed any strong lead, sent for
the General.

[Footnote 381: Morley, _Life of Gladstone_, vol. iii. p. 147.]

Charles George Gordon, born at Woolwich in 1833, was the scion of a
staunch race of Scottish fighters. His great-grandfather served under
Cope at Prestonpans; his grandfather fought in Boscawen's expedition at
Louisburg and under Wolfe at Quebec. His father attained the rank of
Lieutenant-General. From his mother, too, he derived qualities of
self-reliance and endurance of no mean order. Despite the fact that she
had eleven children, and that three of her sons were out at the Crimea,
she is said never to have quailed during that dark time. Of these sons,
Charles George was serving in the Engineers; he showed at his first
contact with war an aptitude and resource which won the admiration of
all. "We used always to send him out to find what new move the Russians
were making"--such was the testimony of one of his superior officers. Of
his subsequent duties in delimiting the new Bessarabian frontier and his
miraculous career in China we cannot speak in detail. By the consent of
all, it was his soldierly spirit that helped to save that Empire from
anarchy at the hands of the Taeping rebels, whose movement presented a
strange medley of perverted Christianity, communism, and freebooting.
There it was that his magnetic influence over men first had free play.
Though he was only thirty years of age, his fine physique, dauntless
daring, and the spirit of unquestionable authority that looked out from
his kindly eyes, gained speedy control over the motley s