Page:Eminent Victorians.djvu/326

 any emissary or letter comes up here ordering me to come down, " This was sheer insubordination, no doubt; but he could not help that; it was not in his nature to be obedient. "I know if I was chief, I would never employ myself, for I am incorrigible." Decidedly, he was not afraid to be "what club men call insubordinate, though, of all insubordinates, the club men are the worst."

As for the government which was to replace him, there were several alternatives: an Egyptian Pasha might succeed him as Governor-General, or Zobeir might be appointed after all, or the whole country might be handed over to the Sultan. His fertile imagination evolved scheme after scheme; and his visions of his own future were equally various. He would withdraw to the Equator; he would be delighted to spend Christmas in Brussels; he would &hellip; at any rate he would never go back to England. That was certain. "I dwell on the joy of never seeing Great Britain again, with its horrid, wearisome dinner parties and miseries. How we can put up with those things, passes my imagination! It is a perfect bondage. &hellip; I would sooner live like a Dervish with the Mahdi, than go out to dinner every night in London. I hope, if any English General comes to Khartoum, he will not ask me to dinner. Why men cannot be friends without bringing the wretched stomachs in, is astounding."

But would an English General ever have the opportunity of asking him to dinner in Khartoum? There were moments when terrible misgivings assailed him. He pieced together his scraps of intelligence with feverish exactitude; he calculated times, distances, marches; "if," he wrote on October 24th, "they do not come before 30th November, the game is up, and Rule Britannia." Curious premonitions came into his mind. When he heard that the Mahdi was approaching in person, it seemed to be the fulfilment of a destiny, for he had "always felt we were doomed to come face to face." What would be the end of it all? "It is, of course, on the cards," he noted, "that Khartoum is taken