ON THE WAY TO KHARTUM. 6 1 Malortie Gordon had started on the journey. He had risen early on the morning of the 26th and called on the khedive, by whom he was most cordially received, as he was also by Nubar Pasha.

He then went with Sir Evelyn Wood, Colonel Stewart, and Major Watson to have a long conference with Sir E. Baring on the whole situation in the Soudan. On the 26th he set out.

" Everything has gone most satisfactorily with Gordon. He leaves in good spirits," wrote Sir E. Baring to Earl Granville at 4'55 p.m. on the 26th of January; and on the 1st of February, by which time Gordon had reached Assouan, Sir E. Baring wrote: — " Gordon's suggestions have been followed in every particular. Although under my instructions, he has, as a matter of fact, been left the widest discretionary power. His visit to Cairo was most useful, as it will enable the authorities here to help him much more than would otherwise have been possible. There is no sort ot difference between his views and those entertained by Nubar Pasha and myself." Before Gordon left Cairo he desired to be confronted with Zebehr. The story of this man's doings, his influence, and the fate which overtook his son, who had been instigated to rebellion while Gordon and Gessi were endeavouring to suppress the raids of the slave-hunters, has been told in previous pages. Zebehr had left the Bahr Gazelle and taken his wealth and his complaints to Cairo, where the official pashas had contrived to pocket a considerable proportion of the former, amounting to many hundreds of thousands of pounds, while promising to gain the ear of the government to his alleged grievances. In Cairo, however, he was detained as a kind of prisoner under surveillance. The private papers which Gordon and Gessi had found supplied evidence which established Zebehr's guilt; but the result had been that he went unpunished, except in being detained at Cairo with a pension,1 and judging from his subsequent assumption it seemed possible that the papers which condemned him had either been given up to him or destroyed That Zebehr entertained deep resentment against General Gordon may easily be believed, for Gordon had punished with 1 Vol. i. p. 214.