ey come and see me, that they cannot
hold the match to their cigarette.' Yet he employed all other methods
of inspiring their efforts. As the winter drew on, the sufferings of the
besieged increased and their faith in their commander and his promises
of relief diminished. To preserve their hopes--and, by their hopes,
their courage and loyalty--was beyond the power of man. But what a great
man in the utmost exercise of his faculties and authority might do,
Gordon did.

His extraordinary spirit never burned more brightly than in these last,
gloomy days. The money to pay the troops was exhausted. He issued notes,
signing them with his own name. The citizens groaned under the triple
scourge of scarcity, disease, and war. He ordered the bands to play
merrily and discharged rockets. It was said that they were abandoned,
that help would never come, that the expedition was a myth--the lie of a
General who was disavowed by his Government. Forthwith he placarded
the walls with the news of victories and of the advance of a triumphant
British army; or hired all the best houses by the river's bank for the
accommodation of the officers of the relieving force. A Dervish shell
crashed through his palace. He ordered the date of its arrival to be
inscribed above the hole. For those who served him faithfully he struck
medals and presented them with pomp and circumstance. Others less
laudable he shot. And by all these means and expedients the defence of
the city was prolonged through the summer, autumn, and winter of 1884
and on into the year 1885.

All this time the public anxiety in England had been steadily growing.
If Gordon was abandoned, he was by no means forgotten. As his mission
had been followed with intense interest throughout the whole country,
so its failure had caused general despondency. Disappointment soon gave
place to alarm. The subject of the personal safety of the distinguished
envoy was first raised in the House of Commons on the 16th of March by
Lord Randolph Churchill. Availing himself of the opportunities provided
by Supply, he criticised the vacillating policy of the Government,
their purposeless slaughter in the Eastern Soudan, and their failure to
establish the Suakin-Berber route. He proceeded to draw attention to the
perilous position of General Gordon at Khartoum.

'Colonel Coetlogon has stated that Khartoum may be easily captured; we
know that General Gordon is surrounded by hostile tribes and cut off
from