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with the town and run all risks." His Journal of 17th September
said "D.V. I will not give up the place except with my life."

So lived and so thought Gordon, doing his duty, just as
Gordon's friend told Mr. Gladstone's colleague in April that he
would do it. He had already sent Stewart, Power, Herbin, and
others away, and wrote, 5th November, "I say in defence of my
letting Stewart go, that both he, Power, and Herbin felt our situa-
tion here was desperate after the defeat at El Foun–that I had
over and over again said it was impossible for me to go; physically
impossible, because even my servants would have betrayed me
(even if I had felt inclined to leave), and I would die here (even
going so far as to have two mines brought to the palace , with
which to blow it up, if the place fell)."

A part of the delay of some months, which Gladstone justified,
appears to have been occupied in tempting Gordon to share the
shame of the Ministry. Mr. Egerton, on the 22nd of July, suggests
"that £10,000, and even double," might be offered for "bringing
out Gordon" (Blue-Book, 1884, No. 32, p.28), and Granville (ib.,
p.31) graciously replies, 25th July that Her Majesty's Govern-
ment "would not grudge the amount," and would not restrict it,
"relying as they do upon Major Kitchener's discretion not to
expend more than is necessary ... for the release of General
Gordon."

Within a week of this intimation, Gordon was writing (in a
despatch which he sent safely by Massowah to Suakim)–"It is a
sine qua non that you send me Zebehr, otherwise my stay here is
indefinite."*

This despatch reached Cairo in September, when Wolseley, after
chafing at delay, had arrived in Egypt; but it is significant as
showing how "wide as the poles asunder" were the views of the
Ministry and of Gordon on points of duty and of honour.

Of course no attention was paid to Gordon. The "great

[Footnote]
* All the pretences put forward at later dates about the apprehensions of the
Ministry lest Gordon's life should be endangered, may be dismissed as false.
They were afterthoughts. Lord Granville's despatch, 22nd February, already cited, based
the refusal on his estimate of the "public opinion of this country." By the terms of
that refusal, the Gladstone Ministry must stand or fall. Zebehr's character, what-
ever it may be, is not tainted with telling untruth to deceive the House of Commons
or the House of Lords, and the told the lady who saw him at Gibraltar (Contempporary
Review, 1887, pp. 679-80)–" All was wiped out between us. Though he was against
me, I knew Gordon to be a great and good man. He wanted to have me sent up. I
wanted to go. If I had gone, Gordon would have come home safe. Then who killed
Gordon? Not the Soudanese. It was the English who refused to let him have the
friend he asked fot. The English killed him, and why? Because they were like
children, frightened and believing in evil." It is melancholy to think that abroad the
"great refusal and its consequences may be ascribed not to the perpetrators, but to
the English.