Gordon had some years before been Governor-General of the Soudan for the Khedive Ismail. He had been then offered £10,000 a year, but would not take more than £2,000, for he knew it would be “blood money wrung from the wretches under his rule.” When previously “Chinese Gordon,” as he was called, had put down the Taiping rebels for the Chinese Government, he refused the enormous treasure which was offered him, in order to mark his resentment at the treachery of the Emperor for having executed the rebel chiefs after Gordon had promised them their lives. Gordon was a man of simple piety. “God dwells in us”--this was the doctrine he most valued. After the Bible, the “Imitation of Christ,” the writings of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, seem to have been his favourites. He once wrote: “Amongst troubles and worries no one can have peace till he stays his soul upon his God. It gives a man superhuman strength.... The quiet, peaceful life of our Lord was solely due to His submission to God’s will.” Such was the man whom England sent out too late to face the rising storm of Arab rebellion. Gordon reached Khartoum on the 18th of February, taking up his quarters in the palace which had been his home in years before. He had come, he said, without troops, nor would he fight with any weapons but justice. The chains were struck off from the limbs of the prisoners in the dungeons. “I shall make them love me,” he said; and the black people came in their thousands to kiss his feet, calling him “the Sultan of the Soudan.” But time went by, and Gordon could not get the Government at home to second his schemes, so that the natives began to lose confidence in him, and sided with the Mahdi. The Arabs began to attack Khartoum on the 12th of March, and from that date until his death Gordon was engaged in defending the city. Khartoum is situated on the western bank of the Blue Nile, on a spit of sand between the junction of that river with the White Nile. Nearly all the records of this period have been lost, but it is proved that wire entanglements were stretched in front of the earthworks, mines were laid down, the Yarrow-built steamers were made bullet-proof and furnished with towers, guns were mounted on the public buildings, and expeditions in search of food were sent out. It was Gordon’s habit to go up on the roof at sunrise and scan the country around. “I am not alone,” he would say, “for He is ever with me.” On the 16th of March he had to look upon his native troops retiring before the rebel horsemen. He writes: