Two days later he received a telegram from sir Robert Hart, director of the customs in China, begging him to take the first ship to Tientsin, where his services were badly needed. As his request to the English War Office for six months' leave was refused, he replied that his object in going to China was to prevent a war which was likely to break out between that country and Russia, and therefore, if the permission asked was not granted, he should be forced to throw up his commission in the queen's service.
On receipt of this message the government allowed him to go, and for three months he worked hard, and not only contrived, as he hoped, to prevent the war with Russia, but to check the revolt of Li Hung Chang, who desired to place the crown on his own head.
Having accomplished what he intended, he found himself in London in October, and in 1881 went out to the island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, to command the engineers.
At last he rested from the heavy responsibilities of the last few years, though he worked as he always must do, and, now a major-general, in April 1882 set sail for the Cape, where the governor of the colony, sir Hercules Robinson, wanted his advice on the settlement and administration of Basutoland. But when Gordon arrived he found his views on the subject so totally different from those of the men in power that he resigned and left, and from London he carried out the great longing of his life—a visit to the Holy Land. Few people knew and loved their Bibles like Gordon, and every stone in Palestine was full of interest to him. Here he was alone and quiet, respecting the faith of others, and therefore causing them to respect his; talking and praying with those of different religions, teaching them and learning from them; preparing himself, as the Master whom he served had also done, for the fiery trial through which he was to pass.
All this time the king of the Belgians had been offering him the command of an expedition his majesty was anxious to send to the Congo, and continued to press the matter in spite of the refusal of Mr. Gladstone, then prime minister, to lend him Gordon to lead it. On January 1, 1884, Gordon went over to Brussels to talk over affairs with the king, and while he was there the English government suddenly decided to send him at once to the Soudan, where matters were in a very threatening state.
Since Gordon had left the country, four years before, Arabi pasha had revolted, and been crushed at Tel-el-Kebir, and a dervish in the Soudan, Mohammed Ahmed by name, had made himself famous by proclaiming himself mahdi, the expected prophet of the whole Mahometan world. Thousands flocked to the standard that he raised, and his armed escort stood with drawn swords in his presence. The Egyptian governor-general summoned him to Khartoum to answer for his proceedings, but the mahdi answered that he was master of the country and obeyed no one. The troops despatched against him he always defeated, and when a new governor-general and a fresh army gave him battle they were utterly destroyed. Obeid in Darfour surrendered after a five months' siege, and, flushed with success, he carried all before him.
In June 1883 colonel Hicks was given by the Egyptian government the military command at Khartoum, with ten thousand men and thirty guns; but he had no knowledge of the country where he had to fight, and fell an easy prey to the mahdi's army, which was ten times as numerous as his own. The tribes of the eastern Soudan joined the victor's banner, and here, while Gordon was on his way to Khartoum, Baker pasha was defeated by Osman Digna, a slave-dealer of Suakim.