what followed was still more terrible. Decidedly, it was no child's play to be "taken prisoner by the Mahdi." And Gordon was actually there, among those people, in closest intercourse with them, responsible, beloved. Yes; no doubt. But was that, in truth, his only motive? Did he not wish in reality, by lingering in Khartoum, to force the hand of the Government? To oblige them whether they would or no, to send an army to smash up the Mahdi? And was that fair? Was that his duty? He might protest, with his last breath, that he had "tried to do his duty"; Sir Evelyn Baring, at any rate, would not agree.
But Sir Evelyn Baring was inaudible, and Gordon now cared very little for his opinions. Is it possible that, if only for a moment, in his extraordinary predicament, he may have listened to another and a very different voice—a voice of singular quality, a voice which—for so one would fain imagine—may well have wakened some familiar echoes in his heart? One day, he received a private letter from the Mahdi. The letter was accompanied by a small bundle of clothes. "In the name of God!" wrote the Mahdi, "herewith a suit of clothes, consisting of a coat (jibbeh), an overcoat, a turban, a cap, a girdle, and beads. This is the clothing of those who have given up this world and its vanities, and who look for the world to come, for everlasting happiness in Paradise. If you truly desire to come to God and seek to live a godly life, you must at once wear this suit, and come out to accept your everlasting good fortune." Did the words bear no meaning to the mystic of Gravesend? But he was an English gentleman, an English officer. He flung the clothes to the ground, and trampled on them in the sight of all. Then, alone, he went up to the roof of his high palace, and turned the telescope once more, almost mechanically, towards the north.
But nothing broke the immovability of that hard horizon; and, indeed, how was it possible that help should
