The burden he had carried on his shoulders through those years was the burden of the whole of the Soudan.
He was ordered several months of complete rest. But those days of rest were only castles that Gordon had built in his day-dreams, when burning days and bitter nights had made him long for ease.
Early in 1880 he became Secretary to Lord Ripon, Viceroy of India. He remained only a few months in India, and then went to China, in answer to an urgent message from his old friend, Li Hung Chang.
China and Russia were on the brink of a great war. The Chinese courtiers wished to fight, but Li Hung Chang longed for peace.
"Come and help me to keep peace," he said to Gordon. And "Chinese Gordon" did not fail him.
"I cannot desert China in her present crisis," he wrote.
His stay in China was not long, but when he returned to England he had made peace between two empires.
He had only been home for a short time when again he was on the wing.
One day at the War Office he met a brother officer, who complained of his bad luck at having to go and command the Engineers at such a dull place as the Island of Mauritius.
"Oh, don't worry yourself," said Gordon, "I will go for you: Mauritius is as good for me as anywhere else."