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Yet Gordon did not sleep one night in Khartoum without knowing he was right, and writing to beg for Zebehr. Forty-eight hours after reaching Cairo Gordon started with Stewart and four Egyptian officers for Khartoum.
At this juncture Raouf was succeeded as Governor-General by Abd-el-Kader Pasha, who had held the same post before Gordon, and who had gained something of a reputation from the conquest of Darfour, in conjunction with Zebehr. At least he ought to have known the Soudan, but the dangers which had been clear to the eye of Gordon were concealed from him and his colleagues.
Zebehr jumped at the offer, and promised to send £25,000 per annum to Cairo from the Soudan, if he were made Governor-General in place of Gordon. This of course meant that he would be allowed a perfectly free hand to kidnap as many slaves as possible, in order to make up the annual deficit in addition to this subsidy of £25,000.
On the other hand, if either of Gordon's suggestions had been accepted and the country handed over to the Turks or to Zebehr, the towns at both ends would have been held in force, and a suitable escort could have been provided for the Egyptian employés. Gordon states his position very fairly in the following brief telegram to Sir Evelyn Baring:
An army was sent against Zebehr, who easily defeated it, and proclaimed himself ruler of the Soudan or 'land of the black, south of Khartoum, then a little group of three thousand mud-houses on the left bank of the Blue Nile, three miles from its junction with the White Nile.
The slave-dealers soon formed themselves into a sort of league, with Zebehr at their head, and, having created an army made up of Arabs and of the slaves they had taken, refused to pay tribute to the khedive, or to acknowledge the supremacy of the sultan of Constantinople, whose viceroy he was.
Again he urged the despatch of Zebehr as his "successor," after the withdrawal of troops and civilians from the Sudan. But, as Sir Evelyn Baring said in forwarding Gordon's request to Downing Street, it would be most dangerous to place them together at Khartum.
The conviction that Gordon's appointment and departure were retarded by personal animus and an old difference is certainly strengthened by all that follows. Sir Evelyn Baring and the Egyptian Government would not have Charles Gordon, but they were quite content to entrust the part of Saviour of the Soudan to Zebehr, the king of the slave-hunters.
When there, those who were interested for various reasons in the proposal to send Zebehr to the Soudan, made a last effort to carry their project by arranging an interview between that person and Gordon, in the hope that all matters in dispute between them might be discussed, and, if possible, settled.
It was, however, one of Gordon's characteristics, and a great charm in his nature, that he was not only forgiving, but that he never allowed personal feeling to affect his judgment. He thought only of what was good for the Soudan, and he was convinced that the only way to restore law and order there was to place Zebehr in power.
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