On January 17, 1884, Gordon, who was in Brussels, received a telegram from lord Wolseley, bidding him come over to London by the evening train. He started at once, and reached London early in the morning, and at twelve o'clock was taken by Wolseley to the Cabinet Council. 'He went in,' writes Gordon, 'and talked to the ministers, and came back and said, "Her majesty's government want you to undertake this. The government are determined to evacuate the Soudan, for they will not undertake to guarantee its safety. Will you go and do it?" I said, "Yes!" He said, "Go in." I went in and saw them. They said, "Did Wolseley tell you our orders?" I said, "Yes." I said, "You will not guarantee the future government of the Soudan, and you wish me to go up to evacuate now?" They said, "Yes," and it was over, and I left at 8 P.M. for Calais.' He was seen off from the station by lord Wolseley and by lord Hartington, afterwards the duke of Devonshire, who always stood loyally by him, and repeatedly urged that help must be sent instantly, while his colleagues in the Cabinet waited to see how things would drift, till the time for help was past. On January 26, the day which a year hence was to witness his death, Gordon, with colonel Stewart, was in Cairo, where he spent two busy days. The first news that greeted him was the success of the mahdi in all directions, and that the Mahometans in Syria and in Arabia would probably rise against their rulers. Yet he does not seem to have understood any better than the English and Egyptian governments what a terrific force the man really was, not so much in himself, but because he stood in the minds of hundreds of thousands for the deliverer who would aid them to shake off a yoke under which they groaned. 'I do not believe in the advance of the mahdi,' says Gordon a few days later; 'he is nephew to my old guide in Darfour, who was a very good fellow,' and on several occasions he shows that he had no idea as yet of the task that lay before him, and considered the mahdi a mere puppet in the hands of the slave-owners, who had joined him to a man. While in Cairo he did his best to make arrangements to ensure good government. He desired to see Nubar pasha, of whom he thought highly, placed in power, and the dangerous Zebehr banished to Cyprus, but Tewfik the khedive would listen to neither proposal. So, to the horror of some of the anti-slavery societies in England, who knew nothing of the supreme difficulties of Gordon's position, the newly appointed governor-general of the Soudan asked to take Zebehr with him, and keep him under his own eye. 'He is the ablest man in the Soudan,' said Gordon afterwards, 'a capital general and a good governor, and with his help I could have crushed the mahdi.' But Gordon's friends at Cairo had no faith in Zebehr's loyalty, and much in his hatred of Gordon, and at their entreaty the plan was given up. Yet Gordon did not sleep one night in Khartoum without knowing