ecided to leave the service of the
Khedive. On October 6th he commenced his journey, and by Christmas Eve
of that year he had reached England.

CHAPTER XI

GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE SOUDAN

Colonel Gordon's visit to England was a very short one, for no sooner
did the Khedive Ismail realise the fact that such an able public
servant had definitely decided to quit his service, than he wrote
imploring him to return on his own terms, which were nothing less than
that he should be invested with the Governor-Generalship of the whole
Soudan, including the Equatorial Province, over which he had for three
years ruled. The Khedive was sufficiently wide awake to know what an
able, conscientious servant he had in Gordon, and, cost what it might,
was determined not to lose him. The truth of the matter was that Gordon
had made himself indispensable to the Khedive, and when a man does that
he may practically demand his own terms. His heart was thoroughly in
the work, and the only reason for his having resigned was that he was
disgusted with Ismail Yacoob, the Governor-General of the Soudan, who,
although Gordon was not under him, was from his position in many ways
able to hamper his reforms. The Khedive wisely decided to recall Ismail
Yacoob from Khartoum, and to put Colonel Gordon in his place. "Setting
a just value," wrote the Khedive, "on your honourable character, on
your zeal, and on the great services that you have already done me, I
have resolved to bring the Soudan, Darfour, and the provinces of the
Equator, into one great province, and to place it under you as
Governor-General. As the country which you are thus to govern is so
vast, you must have beneath you three vakeels (or deputy governors):
the first for the Soudan properly so called, the second for Darfour,
and the third for the shores of the Red Sea and the Eastern Soudan."
Thus, at the age of forty-four, Gordon had committed to his charge the
absolute control, including power over life and death, over a province
as large as France, Germany, and Spain together! He had already served
the Khedive for three years in the unhealthy Equatorial Province, and
now he was to govern for nearly three years more this larger and still
more unwieldy province, his reign only ceasing with the abdication of
Ismail.

When Gordon left England for Cairo, the appointment had not been
conferred upon him. He merely went out to see the Khedive, and it was
not till February 13, 1877, t