Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/371

 

HOW GORDON DIED

the news of the Sirdar's splendid victory reached England, the British nation may be said to have breathed again, and when the great rush was made for the cheap edition of "Ten Years' Captivity," which was extensively advertised with my portrait to catch attention, the few known details of Gordon's death became as fresh again in people's minds as they had been years before. I was constantly asked to relate all I had heard concerning Gordon. When I had done so I was invariably met with quotations and readings from "Mahdism," "Ten Years' Captivity," "Fire and Sword," and other works; for what I had been told of Gordon's death by eye-witnesses was an entirely different history to those published.

The first to relate the story of Gordon's death was a man whose tongue Gordon had threatened to cut out as the only cure for his inveterate lying, and when he escaped and reached Cairo, in telling his tale he sustained his reputation. All accounts of Gordon's death have apparently been based upon this first one received. Gordon, the world has been