In the Days of Queen Victoria

by Eva March Tappan

"That is what the Queen wishes," said another, "but it may be that the Soudan is not worth so many lives as would be wasted in conquering the rebels."

"It is not," declared another positively. "Let us attempt nothing but to keep the Mahdi out of Egypt."

"But what of our English and Egyptian garrisons in the Soudan?" That was a grave question, and a long discussion followed. The government then in power was ready to do almost anything to avoid war. The Queen looked upon the matter differently. She was now no girl of eighteen, she was a woman with nearly fifty years' experience in dealing with nations civilized and nations uncivilized. She believed that it was best to hold on to the Soudan; but since her Ministers were determined to abandon it to the revolters, she saw that the only thing to do was to lose no time in confronting the Mahdi with an army so overwhelmingly superior to his own forces that he would not dare to attack the garrisons.

The Ministers did not agree with her. "General Gordon has already shown that he knows how to manage the people of the Soudan," they said, "and he will be able to persuade the Mahdi to let the garrisons go free."

"With an army to support him, yes," said the Queen; "but alone, no."

Nevertheless, General Gordon was sent to cross the desert almost alone. In spite of all that the brave commander could do, the Mahdi could not be persuaded to let the garrisons go, and soon the envoy himself was shut up in Khartoum. "Help us," he pleaded with England. "Send us troops." Still the government delayed, in spite of the Queen's warnings. No help came, and General Gordon then sent a messenger to beg private parties in the British colonies and the United States for money to organize a relief expedition; but the messengers were captured and put to death. The Queen urged and insisted that relief should be given, and the people insisted with her. Troops were sent at last, and they hastened on till they were only a mile and a half from Khartoum. But they were forty-eight hours too late, for the city had fallen, and General Gordon had been slain.

Queen Victoria was a constitutional monarch. She had stood firmly by her Ministers ever since the Bedchamber Plot of the first year of her reign; but she was also a woman, a loving, tender-hearted woman, and she wrote to General Gordon's sister a letter in which sympathy for her loss and indignation for the "stain left upon England" were mingled. She said:

"Dear Miss Gordon,

"How shall I write to you, or how shall I attempt to express what I feel! To think of your dear, noble, heroic brother, who served his country and his Queen so truly, so heroically, with a self-sacrifice so edifying to the world, not having been rescued! That the promises of support were not fulfilled—which I so frequently and constantly pressed on those who asked him to go—is to me grief inexpressible."

General Gordon's diary was found and sent to his sister. Its last entry was, "I have done my best for the honor of our country. Good-by." His Bible was presented by his sister to the Queen. It was placed on a cushion of white satin in an exquisite casket of carved crystal with silver mountings. "This is one of my greatest treasures," the Queen often said, as she sadly pointed it out to her friends.