This taking of Chang-Chow-Fu was to be a sight worth seeing—­the culminating point of the whole campaign.  Nowhere had the rebels fought with greater obstinacy or gathered in greater numbers.  One spy told Gordon that he had forty thousand soldiers against him; another fifty thousand; a third a hundred thousand.  It was impossible to get accurate information.  He only knew that twice the rebels were strong enough to repulse the Imperialist attacks and that he himself was determined to lead the third—­from which there could be no turning back.  “You,” said he to Robert Hart, “must arrange with Li that, if I fall, some one is ready to take my place.”  Major Edwardes, also a Royal Engineer, was the man chosen; but, after all, his services were not needed.

The great attack was fixed for the 11th of May.  On the 10th Gordon determined to find out all he could about the position of the rebels on the city wall, so taking a small party, which included Hart and two of his faithful bodyguard, he went out to reconnoitre.  No sooner had the Taipings recognized the Ever-Victorious Leader than they pelted shots at him.  The wooden screen behind which he took shelter looked in a very few minutes as if it were suffering from an acute attack of smallpox.

But Gordon, with his usual miraculous luck—­in his fighting before more than twenty cities he was only once wounded—­escaped scot-free, though one of his bodyguard got a bullet in his chest.  With all possible haste the poor fellow was taken back to the doctor’s boat, and the surgeon began poking his fingers into the wound to find the ball.  It was not a pleasant operation for the guardsman, and he made some grimaces, much to the amusement of several of his companions, who stood on the bank and jeered at his lack of courage.  Those jeers, in addition to the pain, exasperated him greatly, and Hart, whose boat was moored next to the doctor’s overheard the man say to his companions, “Yes, it’s all very well for you to laugh, but if you had a rebel fiend’s bullet in your chest, and a foreign devil’s fingers groping after it, you would make more fuss than I do.”

Very early in the morning of the 11th all was in readiness.  The guns from the various batteries around the city began to play.  They barked and roared until noon, when Gordon gave the order to “Cease fire.”  “You see,” he remarked to Hart by way of explanation, “those beggars inside will be completely thrown off their guard by the silence.  They will take it that we have finished work for the day.”

Gordon then snatched a hasty lunch, and at one o’clock the signal was given for the big attack by four soldiers waving red flags on the little hill where Li Hung Chang’s tent stood.  From this hill Hart and Li stood together to watch the operations.  Three rushes were made simultaneously—­two feints, and one led by Gordon himself.  How splendidly he called his men on, how he flourished his little cane, just as though it had been a lance with flying pennant!  I can imagine how the watchers held their breath with excitement.  “They’re in—­no, they’re out; no, they’re in,” one said to the other, I’m sure, till at last they were in, Gordon himself the very first to dash through the narrow breach, his too reckless exposure of his own precious life redeemed by the inspiring audacity of his presence.