It is very sad, and yet it is grand, to read how that lonely soldier defended the city, for almost a year, with no one to help him except natives, and with a howling mob of Arabs outside the walls. He lived in what was called the ‘Palace,’ and day after day he used to go up to the roof, and look in vain down the river, and all over the desert, for the help which he expected would be sent from England, and which never came. It did not come in time, at least, for it was too late in being sent; and when, at last, after much danger, a relieving force did reach the city, it was only to find that it had fallen into the hands of the Arabs two days before, and that its brave defender, along with the rest of the inhabitants, had been killed. [Illustration: _Valentine and Sons, Ltd._ ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL: THE NAVE] Can you imagine the thrill of horror and regret that swept over England when the news came home? It was felt to be such a terrible thing that one of our countrymen should have been sent out to attempt such a dangerous and difficult task, and then left alone for months fighting against such overpowering odds, and that, when at last help was sent, we should have to confess that it was sent ‘too late.’ And yet, to General Gordon, facing death alone in that far-off Soudanese town, it was not terrible; it was simply a bit of God’s will. Listen to the words that he wrote just ten days before the end came, when he knew quite well that if succour did not come speedily, it need not come at all. After writing ‘Good-bye’ to all his friends, he adds, ‘I am quite happy, thank God; and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty.’ These are not the words of a man who sees death coming, and is afraid; they are the words of one who was ‘quite happy,’ because he had done his life-work as well as he could, and was content to go home to God, no matter if the way thither were very rough and very lonely. His body was never found; probably it was hacked in pieces by the Mahdi’s wild followers; and yet he had a ‘funeral.’ For although Englishmen may be slow to act, they act surely; and fourteen long years after Gordon’s death, the Soudan was retaken, and after the great Battle of Omdurman, Lord Kitchener, with his victorious army, entered Khartoum one peaceful Sunday morning, and what do you think was the first thing that he did? He took his troops, British and Egyptian, into the open space in front of the ruined Palace where Gordon had fallen, and formed them into three sides of a square, while he and his generals stood in the centre.