On the 15th October 1883 General Gordon received a telegram from the King of the Belgians, asking him to go to Central Africa to govern the territory that had been acquired by the International Association. The King had once before pressed him to join this movement, which had for its object the opening up of Africa to trade and civilisation, and the consequent abolition of slavery and cruelty. Mr. H. M. Stanley was at the head of the movement, and Gordon offered to serve under him, and had promised the Belgian king that when his services were required they would be given. Stanley had resigned his post, and the time had come for Gordon to redeem his promise. He at once telegraphed home for leave, and the reply came back, "The Secretary of State has decided to sanction your going to the Congo." A telegraph clerk had made a mistake, and the correct message was, "The Secretary of State has _declined_ to sanction your going to the Congo." As Gordon had, however, already promised the King of the Belgians to go, there was no alternative but for him to sever his connection with the British army. With the full intention of placing his resignation in the hands of the Secretary of State for War, as well as to interview King Leopold, he left Palestine at the end of the year 1883. He was travelling on the last night of the old year, and he tells us that he spent that night in prayer in the railway carriage, of which he was the solitary occupant. As the new year was ushered in, the lonely traveller between Genoa and Brussels little thought that it was to be almost his last,[11] and that soon he would be permitted to throw off the earthly tabernacle, and put on the crown of glory. His active brain was busily employed at this time in considering how best he could wage war with human cruelty. He was to have started on January 26, 1885, for the Congo, but a telegram reached him at his sister's house at Southampton, from Lord Wolseley, requesting his presence in London, as an outcry was being made by certain well-informed persons that the only man who was capable of solving the Soudan difficulties was being permitted to leave the British army, and to go into the service of a foreign power, to busy himself in the wilds of Africa. [11] General Gordon is supposed to have been killed on 26th January 1885. CHAPTER XIV KHARTOUM