Baring, Foreign Office,
March 13.] and his offer remains in abeyance. Finally, in bitterness and
vexation, thinking himself abandoned and disavowed, he appeals to Sir
Evelyn Baring personally: 'I feel sure, whatever you may feel
diplomatically, I have your support--and that of every man professing
himself a gentleman--in private'; [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring
(telegraphic), received at Cairo April 16.] and as a last hope he begs
Sir Samuel Baker to appeal to 'British and American millionaires'
to subscribe two hundred thousand pounds to enable him to carry out the
evacuation without, and even in spite of, the Governments of Cairo and
London; and Sir Samuel Baker writes a long letter to the Times in
passionate protest and entreaty.
Such are the chief features in the wretched business. Even the Blue-books
in their dry recital arouse in the reader painful and indignant emotions.
But meanwhile other and still more stirring events were passing outside
the world of paper and ink.
The arrival of Gordon at Khartoum had seriously perplexed and alarmed
Mohammed Ahmed and his Khalifas. Their following was discouraged,
and they themselves feared lest the General should be the herald
of armies. His Berber proclamation reassured them, and as the weeks
passed without reinforcements arriving, the Mahdi and Abdullah,
with that courage which in several great emergencies drew them to the
boldest courses, determined to put a brave face on the matter and blockade
Khartoum itself.
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