The Story of General Gordon Part 10

The steamer with Stewart and Power on board ran aground. The crew was treacherously taken by a native sheikh, and Stewart, Power, and almost all the others were cruelly murdered and their bodies thrown into the Nile.

The news of the death of his two friends, and the ruin of his plan to hasten on the relief of Khartoum, cut Gordon's brave heart to the quick.

Before Mr. Power left, Gordon had given him a little book that he loved. It is called _The Dream of S. Gerontius_. Gordon had marked many pa.s.sages in it.

Here are some:--

"_Pray for me, O my friends._"

"Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled . . ."

"Into thy hands O Lord, into Thy hands . . ."

So it seemed that even then Gordon knew that Death was drawing near him, and was greeting with a fearless face the martyrdom that he was soon to endure.

Yet all the while he never wavered, and his bravery seemed to give courage to the feeblest hearted.

He who had never taken any pride in decorations or in medals--save one--tried to cheer his soldiers by having a decoration made and distributed--"three cla.s.ses: gold, silver, pewter."

A Circa.s.sian in the Egyptian Service, speaking of Gordon in after years, said: "He never seemed to sleep. He was always working and looking after the people."

In the early days of those dark months, Frank Power had written of him that all day he was cheering up others, but that through the night he heard his footfall overhead, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, sleepless, broken in heart, bearing on his soul the burden of those he had no power to save.

At dawn he slept. All day he went the rounds, cheering up the people, seeing to the comfort of every one, feeding the starving as well as he could. For two days at a time he would go without food, that his portion might go to others. They were living on roots and herbs when the siege was done.

All the night he spent on the top of his tower, watching and praying.

Many times in the day did men see the spare figure standing on that yellow-white tower, staring, with eyes that grew tired with longing, into the far-away desert, looking for the help that never came.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Looking for the help that never came]

But, after many delays, an English army was actually on the march.

It was a race of about 1800 miles up the Nile from the sea--a race between Victory and the Salvation of the beleaguered city and its defender on one side, and Defeat, Death, and the Mahdi on the other.

Lord Wolseley, who commanded the expedition, offered 100 to the regiment that covered the distance first.

Some fierce battles were fought on the way, and many brave lives were lost.

On 14th December 1884, Gordon wrote to his sister: "This may be the last letter you will receive from me, for we are on our last legs, owing to the delay of the expedition. However, G.o.d rules all, and, as He will rule to His glory and our welfare, His will be done. . . .

"I am quite happy, thank G.o.d, and, like Lawrence, I have '_tried_ to do my duty.'"

On the same day he wrote in his journal:

"I have done my best for the honour of our country. Good-bye.--C. G.

Gordon."

The last message of all was one that bore no date, and was smuggled out of Khartoum in a cartridge case by one who had been his servant:--

"What I have gone through I cannot describe. The Almighty G.o.d will help me."

In the camp of the Mahdi lay an Austrian prisoner, Slatin Pasha.

On the 15th of January 1885 he heard vigorous firing from Khartoum.

Gordon and his garrison were preventing the Mahdists from keeping in their possession a fort which they had just taken.

In the days that followed, the firing went on, but Gordon's ammunition was nearly done, and he and his men were weak and spent with hunger.

On the night of the 25th Slatin heard "the deafening discharge of thousands of rifles and guns; this lasted for a few minutes, then only occasional shots were heard, and now all was quiet again."

He lay wide awake, wondering if this was the great attack on Khartoum that the Mahdi had always planned.

A few hours later, three black soldiers entered the prison bearing something in a b.l.o.o.d.y cloth. They threw it at the prisoner's feet, and he saw that it was the head of General Gordon.

When the relieving army reached Khartoum, they found the Mahdi's banners of black and green flaunting from its walls, and the guns that had so bravely defended it turned against them. They had come too late.

A traitor in the camp had hastened the end, and Gordon had fallen, hacked to pieces, while trying to rally his troops.

For hours after he fell, ma.s.sacre and destruction went on in the city.

Fourteen years later, Lord Kitchener and his soldiers avenged that ma.s.sacre, and marched into Khartoum.

The Mahdi was dead. He who boasted that he was immortal had died from poison given him by a woman whom he had cruelly used. The Mahdi's successors had fallen before a conquering English army.

When the Mahdists sacked and burned the Governor's Palace, they forgot to destroy the trees and the rose bushes that Gordon with his own hands had planted.

And in a new and lovely garden, beside a new Palace from which a brave Scottish soldier rules the Soudan, the roses grow still, fragrant and beautiful.

Khartoum is a great town now, peaceful and prosperous.

The Gordon College, where the boys of the Soudan are taught all that English schoolboys learn, is the monument that England gave to a hero.

A statue of him stands in one of the squares, and to it came a poor old black woman to whom Gordon had been very kind.

"G.o.d be praised!" she cried, "Gordon Pasha has come again!"

For a whole day she sat beside the statue, longing for a look from him who had never before pa.s.sed her without a friendly nod.

"Is he tired? or what is it?" she asked.

After many visits, she came home one evening quite happy.

"The Pasha has nodded his head to me!" she said.

And so, in the hearts of the people of the Soudan, Gordon Pasha still lives.

Winds carry across the desert the scent of the roses that he planted, and that drop their fragrant leaves near where his blood was shed.

And to the Eastern country for whose sake he died, and to our own land for whose honour his life was given, he has left a memory that must be like the roses--for ever fragrant, and for ever sweet.