No event in 1885 gave the Queen more concern than the failure of Lord Wolseley’s attempt to relieve Khartoum. The story of General Gordon’s mission to the Soudan has already been partially told. It was on the 18th of January, 1884, that he was instructed by the Cabinet to proceed to Khartoum to extricate the beleaguered garrisons. He writes, “It cannot be said I was ordered to go. The subject was too complex for any order. It was, ‘Will you go and try?’ and my answer was ‘Only too delighted.’”[217] The truth is that Gordon doubted whether 20,000 Egyptian troops and colonists could be got out of the Soudan by a process of pacific evacuation. Still, if any one might achieve the feat he could, and to please the Government, he consented to “go and try.” His and their idea was that by restoring the old native families to power he might buy a safe-conduct for the garrisons. On the 8th of February, when he arrived at Abu Hamed, he found that the country was less disorganised than he had supposed it to be when discussing its prospects with Cabinet Ministers in London. Therefore he suggested that a light suzerainty should be exercised over the Soudan, for a time at least, by the Khedive’s officers. This conviction grew stronger when he reached Berber. He then said that his mission could not be carried out with credit to England unless some form of government less heterogeneous than that of the native chiefs were established, in place of the Egyptian administration which he was sent to withdraw. Hence, he suggested that Zebehr Pasha should be appointed Ruler of the Soudan under certain conditions, and he chose Zebehr because he was not such an atrocious slave-trader as the Mahdi; because he might be more easily curbed, and because his high descent from the Abbasides enabled him to exercise real authority over the Soudanese. Sir Evelyn Baring and Nubar Pasha agreed with Gordon. So did Lord Wolseley. Mr. Gladstone and Lord Kimberley too, though they had no love for Zebehr, thought that Gordon’s opinion ought to be deferred to, but Lord Hartington only gave them a feeble, half-hearted support, and Lord Granville’s opposition to Gordon’s policy carried the Cabinet against Mr. Gladstone. Hence Zebehr was not sent. Zebehr naturally took this decision of the Cabinet as an insult, and forthwith, opened up a treasonable correspondence with the Mahdi, the discovery of which led to his arrest and deportation to Gibraltar on the 14th of March, 1885.