The following year Burton’s prescience proved true. The Soudan was “not a lasting thing,” so far as Gordon was concerned. Ismail Khedive had abdicated, and Tewfik his son ruled in his stead; and Gordon, dissatisfied with many things, finally threw up his post on account of the Slave Convention. Though he placed his resignation in the Khedive’s hands, Tewfik begged him to undertake a mission to Abyssinia. While he was on the journey he wrote the following to Burton:
“En Route to Massowah, Red Sea,
“August 31, 1879.
“My dear Burton,
“Thanks for several little notes from you, and one from Mrs. Burton, and also for the papers you sent me. I have been on my travels, and had not time to write. An Italian has egged on Johannis to be hostile, and so I have to go to Massowah to settle the affair if I can. I then hope to go home for good, for the slave-hunters (thanks to Gessi) have collapsed, and it will take a long time to rebuild again, even if fostered by my successor. I like the new Khedive immensely; but I warn you that all Midian guiles will be wasted on him, and Mrs. Burton ought to have taken the £3,000 I offered her at Suez, and which she scoffed at, saying, ‘You would want that for gloves.’ Do you wear those skin coverings to your paws? I do not! No, the days of Arabian Nights are over, and stern economy now rules. Tewfik seeks ‘honour, not honours.’ I do not know what he will do with the Soudan; he is glad, I think (indeed feel sure), I am going. I was becoming a too powerful Satrap. The general report at Cairo was that I meditated rebellion even under Ismail the ‘incurable,’ and now they cannot imagine why I am so well received by the new Khedive.
“Believe me,
“Yours sincerely,
“C. G. Gordon.”
Gordon was not the only one who suffered by the change of Khedive. Burton, as Gordon had foretold, came to grief over the Mines of Midian, for Tewfik declined to be bound by any promise of his father; and though Burton went to Egypt to interview the Khedive, to see if he could do anything, his efforts were of no avail. Meanwhile Isabel, who had come to London mainly for medical treatment, was moving heaven and earth to see if she could induce the English Government to stir in the matter; but they naturally declined. Isabel wrote to Gordon, who had now come home from Egypt, on this and other matters. She received from him the following letters in answer to her request and inquiries concerning the state of affairs in Egypt:
“U.S. Club, Pall Mall,