he head of the movement, and Gordon offered to serve under him, and
had promised the Belgian king that when his services were required they
would be given. Stanley had resigned his post, and the time had come
for Gordon to redeem his promise. He at once telegraphed home for
leave, and the reply came back, "The Secretary of State has decided to
sanction your going to the Congo." A telegraph clerk had made a
mistake, and the correct message was, "The Secretary of State has
_declined_ to sanction your going to the Congo." As Gordon had,
however, already promised the King of the Belgians to go, there was no
alternative but for him to sever his connection with the British army.
With the full intention of placing his resignation in the hands of the
Secretary of State for War, as well as to interview King Leopold, he
left Palestine at the end of the year 1883. He was travelling on the
last night of the old year, and he tells us that he spent that night in
prayer in the railway carriage, of which he was the solitary occupant.
As the new year was ushered in, the lonely traveller between Genoa and
Brussels little thought that it was to be almost his last,[11] and that
soon he would be permitted to throw off the earthly tabernacle, and put
on the crown of glory. His active brain was busily employed at this
time in considering how best he could wage war with human cruelty. He
was to have started on January 26, 1885, for the Congo, but a telegram
reached him at his sister's house at Southampton, from Lord Wolseley,
requesting his presence in London, as an outcry was being made by
certain well-informed persons that the only man who was capable of
solving the Soudan difficulties was being permitted to leave the
British army, and to go into the service of a foreign power, to busy
himself in the wilds of Africa.

[11] General Gordon is supposed to have been killed on 26th
January 1885.

CHAPTER XIV

KHARTOUM

In order to understand aright the events that suddenly intervened and
prevented General Gordon from fulfilling his engagement to the King of
the Belgians, it will be necessary to go back to the year 1882, and
briefly survey what occurred after that time. It will be remembered
that Gordon left the Soudan at the end of 1879, when the young Khedive
Tewfik was reigning in place of his father Ismail, who had been
compelled to resign. Tewfik unfortunately was not fit to rule, and
Egypt above all things wanted a m