y no
longer owned the Khedive as their king. Their king was Sebehr, the
richest and worst of them all--a man who used to have chained lions as
part of his escort, and who owned a great army of armed slaves. When
the slavers refused to pay a tax any longer, and when they had cut in
pieces the army the Khedive sent to quell them, the Khedive grew afraid.

He knew that England and the other European Powers were angry with him
because he permitted slavery. And now that the slavers refused to obey
him, he was between two fires.

So the Khedive and his ministers suddenly seemed to become very much
shocked at the wicked traffic in slaves in the Soudan, and asked
Colonel Gordon to come and help to stop it.

Early in February Gordon arrived in Cairo. He had been but a few days
there when he wrote: "I think I can see the true motive now of the
expedition, and believe it to be a sham to catch the attention of the
English people." He felt he had been humbugged. Only in name was he
Governor, for the Egyptian Government only owned three stations in that
wide tract of country which he had been asked to come and govern.

But Gordon never turned his back upon those who wanted help. The land
was full of misery. There were thousands of wretched people to fight
for and to set free. Humbugged or not, he must do the work he had come
to do, and on the 18th of February 1874 he started for the Soudan.

The Egyptian troops and Gordon's own staff were amazed when they found
what sort of a man was the new Governor. They were used to the
Egyptian officials who never did any work they were not paid for, who
did not do it then if they could find any one else to do it for them,
and whose hands were constantly held out asking for bribes.

Sebehr the slaver, when he went to Cairo, took with him L100,000 to
bribe the Pashas. It was as if some notorious criminal should go to
London with L100,000 gained by murders and thefts to bribe the British
Government. But what would be outrageous in our country was a very
usual thing in Egypt.

As Gordon and his troops (200 Egyptian soldiers) sailed up the Nile in
their _dahabeah_, the boat was often blocked by the tangled water
weeds. And always one of the first to spring into the water and help
to pull the boat onwards was the new Governor. The old Nile
crocodiles, even, must have been surprised; but they did him no harm,
for they never touch any one who is moving.

They landed at Berber, and