386 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

If this communication was not intended as a taunt, but was meant as a genuine proposal, it would explain much that is otherwise unintelligible in the Mahdi's attitfude towards Gordon, and would tend to confirm the rumour that, up to the last, the Mahdi wished to have had Gordon taken alive.

The news of Gordon's death, of the capture of Khartoum, and of the massacres which followed the Mahdi's victory, created intense excitement in England. The tide of popular passion carried all before it. The Ministry were, I have no doubt, themselves influenced by the feeling of the hour, as well as by political considerations, and when Parliament opened, on the 19th of February, the Government announced that they had come to the decision to advance on Khar-* toum in order to destroy the power of the Mahdi, but that, before this, the plan of campaign must be discussed and arranged between Lord Wolseley and the War Office. I should, perhaps, mention here that Lord Hartington, if common report is correct, had throughout been the chief advocate in Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet of a warlike policy. The advanced period of the season, coupled with the lowness of the Nile, precluded any immediate action. It was therefore agreed to suspend military operations till the autumn, when a fresh advance was to be made on Khartoum along the Nile valley. This advance was to be preceded by the despatch of a British army of 9000 men to Suakin, who were to march from there to Berber across the desert, and were to