But when Friday, the 13th, came, we heard of poor Gordon's death, which had taken place Monday, January the 26th, and they had been keeping it from us. We both collapsed altogether, were ill all day, and profoundly melancholy. I remembered, too, that at the time that Gordon had been sent out, it was a toss up whether Richard or Gordon should go. Richard had just begun to break up (he was fifty-five), and I knew that if he was sent he would get up out of his sick bed to go, and think himself perfectly capable of undertaking the expedition; and I remember writing privately to the Foreign Office, to let them know how ill he was. Richard at that time expressed a hope that they would not send Gordon without five hundred soldiers to back him, and the neglect of this, whether from economy, or whether Gordon refused it, was the sole cause of the failure. Richard could talk of nothing else, and he fretted a great deal about it. In one of the illustrated papers there was a picture of Gordon lying deserted in the desert, his Bible in one hand, his revolver in the other, and the vultures sitting around. When Richard saw it he said with great emotion, "Take it away! I can't bear to look at it. I have had to feel that myself; I know what it is." But the more the news came in, the less he believed in Gordon's death, and he died believing that Gordon (disgusted at the cruel treatment of being abandoned to his fate) had escaped by the missing boat, and would come out Congo-wards, but that he would never let himself be rediscovered, nor reappear in England—and Gordon was quite the man to do it.
I quote this prematurely, because it concerns the present subject:—
"Is Gordon dead?
"Trieste, April 29, 1887.
"I have just received a note from the Rev. Mr. Robert W. Felkin, dated Edinburgh, April 2nd. Under the supposition that I am proceeding with an expedition to the Soudan in order to discover General Charles Gordon, he encloses me a note from a youth whom he educated in England for some years, and whom he has now placed at the American Mission School at Assiout. It dates from as far back as November 28, 1886.
"The following is the extract:—
"'There was a man came from Khartoum and said that he was one of General Gordon's soldiers; he came into class (school) and the master asked him many questions, and he said that General Gordon had a steamboat and went down to South, and there was a Turkish soldier whose face was like his, and they killed him and said it was General Gordon.
"'He said a great many things about Gordon's soldiers, that they were not able to use their guns because they were so weakened with hunger.
"'(Signed) Sulayman Kabsun.'
"I see with pleasure that Mr. Felkin never thought that the evidence proved Gordon's death, and conceives many ways to explain his escape.
"Richard F. Burton."
London Figaro, September 26th, 1887.
"I am not surprised," says a correspondent, "to hear that Sir Richard Burton has from the first maintained that Gordon is not dead. He was Gordon's intimate friend, and, being of the same stamp, having lived the same kind of glorious life, and had the same experience of his country's neglect, is more likely to know than others what Gordon, in disgust at the treatment he received from the Government, could and might do. Moreover, as Sir Richard Burton says, no two of the several accounts of Gordon's death are alike. He is sure to have had a picked lot of attached followers, who, as well as one steamer, are missing."
A correspondent wrote: "A friend called in the other day to see Sir Richard Burton, and remarked, 'Why, Burton, if Gordon turns up, the Government will begin to believe in your knowledge. You will be a made man.' Burton replied with his usual quiet 'Ye—es,' stroking his chin thoughtfully; 'for God's sake, my dear fellow, don't say anything about it. The Foreign Office will only say what a damned beast I was to know it when they never even suspected it!'"
Spring comes very soon in Trieste, and we were able to sit and walk out a great deal in the garden. We now had a very nice telephone, which put us in comfortable communication with the whole of the City, and it was very useful, as we lived out of and above it.
On the 14th of April he notices the death of his enemy, Major-General Rigby of Zanzibar, and then poor Rogers Bey, regretted by us both, and then of Nachtigall the traveller.
One morning in April I had a letter, a very cheerful one, from Everard Primrose, to say that he expected to be back in April, as he was very seedy; and that he would come and stay with us for a fortnight en route home. I was just preparing his room, and looking round to see if I could do anything to make it prettier, when a telegram was put into my hand announcing his death. Richard and I were both terribly cut up, and we did not go for a very long time to Vienna, for we had lost our best friend there, and it would have made it too melancholy. On the 9th of May he rejoices that Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald, Director of Public Accounts in Egypt, is made a K.C.M.G., as "he married the elder daughter of our dear friend Lord Houghton," adding, "Dear old fellow, how pleased he will be!" On the 11th of May he mourns Douglas Jerrold, and was touched at the account of Mr. Fred Fargus's death, better known as Hugh Conway.
This summer the English opened a lawn-tennis club, which was very amusing. Our Consular chaplain played lawn tennis like a boy of twenty.
Richard having obtained "leave" (after a second attack of gout), and as I was the proud possessor of £500, we started gaily for London on the 19th of May, and went on board the Tarifa for Venice; it was a Cunarder. Here we saw a great number of friends, and met Lord Lytton at Lady Layard's. We were neither of us well, in different ways, and Richard was ordered to go by sea, and I by land; so, after a couple of days at Venice, I saw Richard off in the Tarifa for Liverpool, and I prepared to come over the Mont Cenis to London; but when I got back to the hotel, I found a telegram from a man I knew, one of what Richard used laughingly to call "my wife's pious pals," who said, "If you want to see a girl exorcised of the devil, come at once to Bologna." I went down to the station, only instead of taking my ticket for London, I, naturally, wild with curiosity, and knowing I had plenty of time, took it at once for Bologna.