All these speculations are dwarfed by the overwhelming fact that Gordon perished.  Various versions have been given of the manner of his death.  One that rests on good authority is that he died fighting.  Another account, which seems more consistent with his character, is that, on hearing of the enemy’s rush into the town, he calmly remarked:  “It is all finished; to-day Gordon will be killed.”  In a short time a chief of the Baggara Arabs with a few others burst in and ordered him to come to the Mahdi.  Gordon refused.  Thrice the Sheikh repeated the command.  Thrice Gordon calmly repeated his refusal.  The sheikh then drew his sword and slashed at his shoulder.  Gordon still looked him steadily in the face.  Thereupon the miscreant struck at his neck, cut off his head, and carried it to the Mahdi[406].

[Footnote 406:  A third account given by Bordeini Bey, a merchant of Khartum, differs in many details.  It is printed by Sir F.R.  Wingate in his Mahdism, p. 171.]

Whatever may be the truth as to details, it is certain that no man ever looked death in the face so long and so serenely as Gordon.  For him life was but duty—­duty to God and duty to man.  We may fitly apply to him the noble lines which Tennyson offered to the memory of another steadfast soul—­

     He, that ever following her commands,
     On with toil of heart and knees and hands,
     Thro’ the long gorge to the far light has won
     His path upward, and prevail’d,
     Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled
     Are close upon the shining table-lands
     To which our God Himself is moon and sun.

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Shortly before the publication of this work, Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice published his Life of Earl Granville, some of the details of which tend somewhat to modify the account of the relations subsisting between the Earl and General Gordon.  See too the issue of the Times of December 10, 1905 (Weekly Edition), for a correction of some of the statements, made in the Life of Earl Granville, by Lord Cromer (Sir Evelyn Baring).]

CHAPTER XVII

THE CONQUEST OF THE SUDAN

“The Sudan, if once proper communication was established, would not be difficult to govern.  The only mode of improving the access to the Sudan, seeing the impoverished state of Egyptian finances, and the mode to do so without an outlay of more than L10,000, is by the Nile.”—­Gordon’s Journals (Sept. 19, 1884).

It may seem that an account of the fall of Khartum is out of place in a volume which deals only with formative events.  But this is not so.  The example of Gordon’s heroism was of itself a great incentive to action for the cause of settled government in that land.  For that cause he had given his life, and few Britons were altogether deaf to the mute