Gordon's Quest

Part 2 of 2

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright 1992

 

"You are an engineer," the major told Gordon, for he was an officer in the Engineers, truly enough.  "You shall de­stroy the Birthday Garden—the Wang-shaw-ewen, as they call it—destroy it, and all its buildings."  Gordon had little use for art and sculpture, but even he could appreciate the beauty he had been sent to annihilate.  An order was an order, though, especially when he could see the sense of it—and he had seen the bodies of the tortured British.  He led his men out on an overcast morning, the air heavy and oppressive.  They broke into a palace, and Gordon stopped, amazed at the wealth of china and porcelain and gold and jade—the statues, the tea sets, the chess sets, the accumulated bric-a-brac of two hundred years, but  all made of precious metals or stones, or of fragrant woods inlaid with gems.

He could not stand to see it all go up in flames.  "Take what you can," he told his men—then, as though the words were dragged out of him: "and break the rest."

Hundred-year-old vases of eggshell porcelain shivered into a thousand slivers; delicate cups and teapots shattered.  Finally the soldiers went through the palace with their torches...

And through the groves of fruit trees, and the sculptured bushes.

In other gardens, other English and Indian troops were doing the same; in still others, French troops looted what they could and broke what they could not carry.  The accu­mulated loot was divided up, and the smoke of the fairy-land-made-real ascended into the sky, a pillar of darkness that proclaimed the Emperor's weakness.  The citizens of Peking looked up and took note; in the months that fol­lowed, merchants took the tale outside the city, and it spread through all of China.  The Chinese learned of the Manchu Emperor's humiliation...

And the sheer brute power of those uncultured barbar­ians, the Foreign Devils who could break priceless beauties beneath their heavy boots and scarcely notice.

But Gordon was restless.  He had come to China to find death, not to destroy a beautiful garden.  The English and French troops had withdrawn, but three thousand British soldiers stayed behind at Tientsin to make sure the Chinese paid the indemnity specified in the treaty.  The force was commanded by General Stavely, whose sister had married Gordon's eldest brother Henry.  Impatient, Gordon filled his time by surveying the country around Tientsin when on duty and riding long distances to keep fit when off-duty—seventy miles at a stretch.  He explored the region of the Great Wall, seeking passes by which Russia might attack China.  Restless or not, he found himself almost at peace, al­most happy, for the scenery and the strangeness of it all held him entranced, and he thrived on the work.

After a year and a half, though, the Taiping rebels in the Yangtze Valley began to move again toward the treaty port of Shanghai, and the international trading community set­tled there became nervous.  Stavely decided to reinforce the garrison, sending two regiments and a group of Engineers—commanded by Gordon.

Gordon arrived on the scene, his appetite keen for action, only to find that the British were cleaving to a policy of strict neutrality—the international army of Indian, British, and French troops would fight if Shanghai were attacked, or if the Taipings came within thirty miles of the city, but they could not go farther afield; they were to be defensive only.  Gordon was put to work constructing new defenses, won­dering why his superiors could not see that the best defense was a good offense.  He learned something of the Taiping re­ligion, and was fascinated by its strangeness at the same time as he was incensed at its distortions of sound Protestant Christianity.  He learned more when he was sent to survey their outpost, Tsingpo, at the very edge of the thirty-mile re­gion that the Western powers regarded as sacrosanct.

The Chinese merchants, however, were in no mood to wait until the fearsome Taipings should come to them.  They had hired an American adventurer, Frederick Townsend Ward, who had put together a small army of a few thousand mercenaries, and had not been too concerned about the honor or legal background of his men.  He had lost as many battles as he had won, but was at least doing something to hold the Taipings at bay.

Then the British took Tsingpo, thanks in no small mea­sure to Gordon's excellent information—and Ward was killed chasing the Taipings as they retreated.  His second-in-command, Burgevine, took over—but Burgevine had little respect for law and less for morality; he was a former gun­runner, and a flagrant opportunist looking for the best deal.  He and the polyglot army captured Kahding, on the northern edge of the thirty-mile boundary, and he let his men loot their fill—and slaughter the Taiping prisoners.

General Stavely was shocked, and determined to remove Burgevine from the command.  He would replace the black­guard with a proper soldier, one who was concerned not for riches, but for Right.  He looked about him to see what of­ficer he could spare...

And the choice fell on Gordon.

Tseng-Kuo-Fan was Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial forces against the Taiping rebels, but Li Hung-Chang was governor of Kiangsu Province and Tseng's general in the east.  Li held up the pay for Burgevine and his troops, so Burgevine rounded up a few of his roughest men, marched on the bank, beat up the banker, and took the cash.  Li promptly fired him, then accepted Gordon's appointment to command the little army (though he insisted on a Chinese co-commander, to make sure Gordon did as Li wanted).

Thus Gordon, the regular army officer with a tradition of service stretching back three generations, took command of a mercenary army, determined to teach them discipline and end their excesses.  He began by renaming them: the Ever-Victorious Army.

His Chinese soldiers were impressed.  His Western ban­dits were not.  They tried to mutiny, twice; Gordon put them down with stern resolve.  Half of them deserted; Gordon was just as glad to see them gone.  He recruited replacements and trained them, making sure they knew discipline from the be­ginning.  Finally Governor Li gave him his orders, and with thirty-five hundred men, two batteries of field artillery, and four batteries of siege artillery, he embarked for the town of Chanzu, which was steadfastly resisting a Taiping siege.

Gordon had not wasted his five months in and around Shanghai.  He had surveyed every acre within the thirty-mile perimeter, and knew the location of every village—but more importantly, he also knew the location of every stream and canal, and how they interconnected to join a network of wa­terways.  He collected a small fleet of river boats, equipped them with cannon fore and aft, and put them under the di­rection of Yankee skippers who knew river navigation from the United States.  The time come, he marched his men on board and cast off to work his way through the canals and rivers to Fushan Creek, which connected Chanzu with the Yangtze.

As they steamed up Fushan Creek, a party of Taipings appeared out of the rice paddies to either side.  They began to lay down a field of fire around the Hyson, Gordon's "flag­ship."  Gordon commanded the gunners to fire; the 32-pounder in the bows boomed, and grapeshot raked the Taiping line.  Their fire faltered but kept up.  A second cannon shot silenced their fire and a third made them re­treat—they were an experienced army, and knew the meaning of cannon.  However, they had brought none them­selves and as Chanzu came in sight, Gordon saw the Taipings leaving the city.

Li was delighted and conferred on him the Order of the Yellow Button.  His troops grinned and strutted; they had taken the town without a bit of risk, or a musket fired.

On the other hand, they weren't allowed to loot.  Many deserted.

Immediately after, Li summoned Gordon.  The summons rankled, but Gordon knew better than to refuse a senior officer, which Li was, in effect.  The governor's expression was masked, his face impassive.  "I have had a communica­tion from Prince Kung.  He commands me to reinstate Burgevine as commander of the Ever-Victorious Army."

Gordon stared.  "What?"  Then he recovered his compo­sure.  "Surely, sir, I have proved my worth!"

"Thoroughly," Li agreed, "and it is a hundred times that of Burgevine's.  I will not conceal from you, Major Gordon, that I have no use for Foreign Devils—but you are superior in manner and bearing to any of those with whom I have had the ill-fortune to come into contact, and you at least mask that conceit which makes most of them repugnant in my sight.  I consider you a direct blessing from Heaven."

Gordon held his face immobile while he adjusted to the shock and delight, then said, "I thank Your Excellency.  But why, then…"

"Burgevine shall remain where he is," said Li, "far from Shanghai.  I have been entrusted with the governance of this province, and Prince Kung has no authority to counter­mand me unless he finds me totally unworthy of my post, whereupon he may replace me.  I have refused his request."

Gordon went back to his tent and wrote to the British Legation in Peking, saying, "I must distinctly decline any further doings with any Chinese forces."  Li learned of it, and persuaded him; Gordon changed his mind.  Li com­manded him to march on Taitsan.

The Taiping commander there had offered to defect to the Imperialists with all his garrison.  Li sent a force to take over the town—and the Taipings fell upon his troops, killing thirty and taking three hundred prisoner.  Gordon was to avenge this treachery.

Gordon packed his three thousand remaining men into small gunboats, shepherded by the Hyson.  He surrounded the town and blocked all but the eastern exit, which led to­wards the sea.  Unable to escape and knowing they would be executed for treachery, the Taipings fought with grim des­peration.  Gordon's cannon pounded their stockade, and in only three hours, had opened a huge breach in the wall.  Gordon rushed his infantry forward in their gunboats.  The captains brought the vessels as close as they could; then the howling troops poured out to charge the breach.  But spears rained from the wall and musket-fire crackled in an un­ending series as bullets battered down at them.  The charge wavered, then receded.

Gordon rallied them with shouts and gestures with his cane; they understood few of his words but comprehended his tone.  Gordon held them in position while his howitzers raked the walls and cut down the defenders.  After a storm of shot, he charged forward, his infantry behind him with muskets, following the madman who threatened the Taipings with nothing but a rattan cane; they could not know that he hoped one of the balls would strike him down as he fought to free the Chinese from a rule he thought more tyrannical than that of the Manchus.

But as one rank of Taipings fell from the blasting of Gordon's howitzers, another popped up in its place, firing down at the attackers.  Still the Ever-Victorious Army came up to the breach—but it filled with Taiping defenders, stab­bing with spears and slashing with swords.  Gordon's men blocked and thrust in their turn, the clank and clash of steel riding high over the staccato musketry.  Incredibly, the Taipings managed to force Gordon's men back from the walls.

Gordon retreated again and rallied his men while his cannon battered at the defenders atop their wall and by the breach.  Then Gordon waved his cane, shouting, and charged out again.  Howling, his infantry pelted after him.

The Taipings filled the breach with steel, but Gordon laid about him with his cane and his men shot their way in with musket and pistol, then chopped at the ranks with swords and stabbed with bayonets.  Taipings died left and right; so did Gordon's men.  But, somehow, the Taipings gave way; suddenly, there were no more of the long-haired rebels in front of them, and Gordon and his men surged on into the town.

The Taiping casualties were great, very great.  For his part, Gordon had lost almost one man out of ten.  But he was deeply impressed with the courage and loyalty of the Chinese, both the Taipings and those in his own army.  He found them quick to learn and ready and willing to follow him into battle.  They were very courageous—in some in­stances, they would outdo even his Europeans for bravery.

But again, Gordon prohibited looting and made it stick.  Worse, when the decimated army returned to base, he threw them right into stiff training for the next battle; he'd already been told they were to march on Quinsan.  There were rumbles of mutiny when the soldiers found they weren't to have a few weeks of R & R.  When he announced the marching orders, every officer resigned.  The next morning, when Gordon ordered the Army to parade in marching order, no one came, except his own bodyguard.

Gordon already knew who the probable ringleaders were; he arrested them instantly, and clapped them into irons.  Then he announced that he and his bodyguards were leaving for Quinsan; they would pause halfway, and anyone who did not answer at afternoon roll call would be dis­missed.

Most of them answered at roll call.  The others would not be missed.

A Taiping general named Ching had defected to the Imperialists.  Governor Li knew just how formidable he had been as an enemy, and Li gave him general's rank and an Imperial army.  At Quinsan, General Ching decided to attack the eastern gate.  Gordon disagreed—the eastern gate was the most strongly fortified, and the western gate would be the Taipings' escape route to Soochow, where a larger Taiping garrison waited.  So Gordon left Ching to attack the eastern gate and took the Hyson and his gun­boats toward the western gate.  Before he arrived, though, the Taipings proved him right—they began to march out through the western gate.  Gordon fired a few shots, left half his army to guard the gate and keep the rebels penned, then set off after the retreating Taipings.  As darkness fell, he gave up the chase and turned back; but as his gunboats approached the western gate, gunshots battered at his ears.  As he came up to the half of his Army left on guard, he saw a huge mass boiling out through the western gate—all the rest of the Taiping garrison trying to break through his lines in a body and retreat to Soochow, eight thousand strong.

It sickened him, but Gordon was outnumbered more than two to one.  He gave the orders; the Hyson's cannon boomed, and the howitzers echoed her.  Shot and ball tore apart the Taiping ranks.  They broke and ran every which way—but they did not retreat back into Quinsan.

Gordon fired, and fired again and again, sickened by what he knew he was doing, but seeing no alternative—any other course of action, and the Taipings would have swept his little army away.  All through the night his guns pounded; finally, Taipings began to go back into the city.

Dawn showed him a field of corpses.

Gordon knew that his men regarded their base in Sungkiang as their haven for rest and recreation, most of it immoral and all of it damaging to discipline—so he set up a new headquarters in Quinsan.  The men didn't like it; the first time he ordered parade, the artillery regiment stayed in their quarters.  They did, however, send a message threat­ening to turn their guns on their European officers, and on any of the Chinese enlisted men who sided with Gordon.  That was flat-out mutiny.  Gordon knew better than to try to laugh it off.  He ordered the artillery men out and lined them up, his officers around them with their weapons cocked and ready.

"Who dreamed up this treacherous notion of blasting away us officers?" Gordon demanded.

The artillerymen glanced at the Europeans who held their guns at the ready, but no one answered.

Gordon's jaw firmed.  "I will have one man in every five shot for mutiny!"

A mournful groan rose from the ranks.  One corporal in the front row was groaning louder and faster than any.  Gordon stepped forward, seized the man, and spun him out of ranks toward his own bodyguard.  "Shoot him."

Two of Gordon's men pinned the man's arms and forced him to his knees.  A third drew his pistol, pointed it at the man's heart, and fired.

The groaning ceased.  The artillerymen stared in shock.  Gordon surveyed them, his face grim.  "You are all under arrest!  Give me the ringleader's name within the hour, or I shall carry out my threat and execute every fifth man!"

The ringleader was delivered up and executed within the hour.  But the next morning, there were many fewer men on parade, and by the end of the week, two thousand of Gordon's troops had deserted.

After all, if there was to be no loot, no rape, and only pay that was late—why stay?

Gordon understood only too well.  He wrote to Li, com­plaining that the Imperial paymasters had fallen behind in paying the troops, and resigned the command of the Ever-Victorious Army.  So saying, he bade farewell to his troops and returned to Shanghai.

There he learned that Burgevine had recruited hundreds of rascals and defected to the Taipings.

Gordon went back to Quinsan immediately, sure that if he were not there to hold them, the remnants of the Ever-Victorious Army would follow Burgevine into the enemy camp.

But the Taipings' doom was clear for all to see now, and the Ever-Victorious Army had no wish to die with them, or with its old commander.  Finally, two months later, Gordon's pickets brought in a peasant with a secret message: Burgevine had not been greeted with delight by the Taipings, and had not been appointed to a high post.  He asked Gordon's help in escaping.

Gordon provided the men and the cover.  Burgevine stepped into his tent with a wide grin to thank him, then went on to say, "Here now, we're the best two commanders in the East, and you know it.  Let's make common cause and leave these Imperials and Taipings to kill each other off.  We'll take the Ever-Victorious Army to Peking, seize the Dragon Throne, and be emperors ourselves over the richest nation on earth!"

Gordon could scarcely believe his ears.  Had Burgevine's drinking finally caused him to become demented?  "I must politely refuse," he said.  "I am a British officer, and cannot forsake my position.  But I will assist you in as many respects as I can."

What he could do, was to give Burgevine a safe-conduct and an escort back to Shanghai—and to hand the escort a letter for the American Consul, requesting that Burgevine leave China without delay.

Tseng Kuo-Fan's generals had pushed the Taipings back from west, north, and south; Li had pushed them in from the east, and they were crowded into Nanking, surrounded by Imperial troops.  Ward's mercenary army could have been a difficult and unpredictable problem for Li, but Gordon had resolved it.  Only one other city remained in Taiping hands: Soochow, on the east.  Reducing it was Li's job.  Gordon was eager to take the Ever-Victorious Army to capture the city, and Li was only too happy to let him.

Gordon replaced his deserters with Taiping prisoners, who were happy to be out of prison with their heads still on their shoulders, and to have an opportunity to earn good money into the bargain.  Gordon wasn't completely sure that they wouldn't go over to the enemy, so he had his officers watch them closely.

Gordon's riverboats and artillery blasted his way through ranks of Taipings to Soochow, and he soon had every gate blocked.

The Taiping officers commanding the garrison knew they had no chance left.  Only one of them refused to sur­render; they handled the problem neatly, with a knife in his back and a sword through his neck.  Then they sent word to General Ching, offering to surrender on terms.  He prom­ised to spare their lives, and those of their men.  They opened the eastern gate to him, and the Imperial troops marched in.  As soon as the garrison was secured, they fell to looting, including the women and girls, and butchering anyone who got in their way.

Gordon would have none of it for the Ever-Victorious Army.  He packed them aboard their steamers and went back down the canal to Quinsan, to Li's advance head­quarters, where he demanded a bonus of two months full pay to replace the loot he had not allowed them to take.  Li agreed to give them a single month's bonus and invited Gordon to attend the formal surrender of the Soochow garrison.  Indignant, Gordon declined—which was just as well, since Ching beheaded the nine Taiping commanders.

For two months, Gordon wrangled with Li over this treacherous action, but Ching was too valuable to the governor, and he would not censure the former Taiping, but took the blame on himself.  Finally, having exasper­ated Gordon completely, he managed to pacify him and persuade him to aid in the steady, relentless advance on Nanking, acre by acre and town by town.

At Kintan, Gordon finally gained part of his wish—he was hit by a bullet, but only in the leg.  Then came news that a Taiping commander had sallied out of Nanking and was trying to retake Quinsan.  Gordon ignored his wound and took his army east to cut off the Taiping advance.  He took their flying column unaware and chased them back to­ward Nanking.  Then he joined up with Li's troops and moved on Changchow.

Changchow was a very tough nut to crack.  His cannon made the breach well enough—the wall crumbled under the pounding of ball after cannonball—but the Taipings held the gap against two storming charges.  On the other side of the town, Li met with similar resistance.

Now Gordon showed his engineering skill.  Under cover of night, his men dug trenches with breastworks, through which soldiers could file, safe from enemy fire, unobserved, until they spilled out only a few yards from the breach.  At dawn, his artillery began a continuous bombardment which lasted all morning.

The guns blasted from the bows of the riverboats behind them, beating in a heavy rhythm, blasting Taipings back and away from the breach in the wall of Changchow.  Gordon shouted and waved his cane for the bombardment to cease, then waved it overhand as he plunged ahead, limping, but leading the charge.  Two thousand throats echoed his shout, and the Ever-Victorious Army plunged after him, a motley collection of Americans, Frenchmen, Germans, Chinese, even a few British.  As the guns fell si­lent, Gordon's men poured out of the trenches and through the breach as musket balls flew all about them, from the long-haired Taiping defenders on top of the wall.  Men fell on each side of him, and Gordon yearned for a musket ball to strike him, but none did.  Leading the charge with no weapon but his rattan cane, Gordon leaped up on the heap of rubble, his army behind him.

And stopped, galvanized, staring into the muzzle of a 32-pound cannon.

Time seemed to stop for him; he braced himself, and a gush of relief shot loose within him, for the death he had longed for had certainly come...

 

*           *           *

 

"We cannot have that!"  Wayland the Smith reached out an unseen hand to the firing mechanism.  "This son of our kind has much to do for us yet!"

 

*           *           *

 

The Taiping pulled the chain, the hammer fell—and the flint broke.

Gordon stood frozen, the moan of fear behind him trans­forming into a shout of victory as his men poured through on either side of him and pounced on the gun-crew, bearing them down.  Behind them, the rest of his little army streamed through the breach.

Gordon stood like a rock around which the flow parted, going limp inside—with disappointment.  He would not be relieved of the burden of life after all.

He disbanded the Ever-Victorious Army soon after; none of them watched the armies of Tseng Kuo-Fan slaughter the tottering, starving remnants of the great Taiping army.

As the English newspapers told it, though, Gordon was not only there—he also defeated the Taipings almost single-handed.

Hung Hsiu-Chuan swallowed wine mixed with gold leaf, and died—but Gordon did not.

 

*           *           *

 

"We have our hero made," said Tyr, "and England has followed him in their hearts.  The Taipings are no longer."

Odin nodded.  "It is well done."

In the distance, Shang-Ti lay limp and exhausted in his great golden throne—but his subordinate deities were gath­ering around him again.

 

*           *           *

 

The mad heathen nightmare was ended; the eerie slide of sing-song speech still echoed in his head, the flames of burning villages still glared in his mind's eye; so Gordon walked by the sea at Gravesend, where the Army had sent him to build new forts that he knew very well would do nothing to protect London if a seaborne invader approached.  He had told the War Office of this, too, but they had ignored his advice, as his superiors always seemed to do—so he was going ahead and doing his duty, and trying to get it done as quickly as possible; but a few days into the new task, the news had come that his father had died.  So he walked by the sea.

In anxiety and depression, he walked through night, even though the sun was shining, looking about him for dis­traction, for insight.  Gordon felt the old terror still lying there, knew it, and disregarded it; already he was restless, yearned for more work...

And there he was, the one-handed man, bent over the simple cookfire, and the spitted haunch that revolved over it.

How like to Father he seemed!

Gordon stepped up by the ring of stones, looking down at the furs, at the shoulder-length hair, the bronze circlet that held it—for surely, yes, it must be bronze, and Gordon had begun to suspect who the old man must be, though he could not admit it, admit any such superstition, not he, who was so devoted to God.

But the grizzled head lifted, the clear gaze pierced to his brain, while Gordon realized, amazed, that he did not look so old now, no, not nearly so old as he had ten years before.  The lined face held itself immobile, but under the long moustaches, the mouth moved and said, "Welcome home, Chinese Gordon."

"Do not mock me so!" Gordon cried.  "You know it was not glory that I sought!"

"I know," the one-handed man agreed, "but your people do not.  They need heroes, Gordon.  You must serve them in this."

"I must serve none but God!  I have no wish to be lion­ized.  You know what I seek!"

"Yes—death.  Are you so hungry for it, then, with your father so recently gone to it?"

"More than ever."  How could the old man know so much about him?  "If he has gone, why should I remain behind?"

"For glory," the old man said simply, "if not for your­self, then for your God."

Gordon met his gaze levelly.  "When will He release me from the burdens of this life, then?"

"I have told you that you shall find death in the East," the old man reminded him.  "I did not say you would find it soon."

"But how am I...!"  Gordon bit off the cry of distress, unwilling to show any weakness.

"How can you walk without your father's hand to up­hold you?"  The old man's gaze never wavered.  "Lean upon your God."

A huge peace flooded Gordon's soul, a well of strength brimmed within him.  He stared at the old man, realizing how true his words were, how completely right.  "Thank you."

"It is as it should be.  Do you still wish death?"

The yearning blazed forth with an intensity that was al­most frightening.  "Yes!"

"If you are so hot for it, then, kill yourself!"  It was a challenge, a dare...

Gordon stood rigid, anger in his eyes.  "I cannot.  Suicide is a sin; I would lose Heaven.  I would go to Hell.  I must be killed by another, and be killed in a worthy cause, giving my life for the welfare of others, even as Our Lord gave his for us!"

"Then continue the hunt."

Gordon's heart leaped.  "There is quarry again?"

"Not for England."  The one-handed man glanced down at the fire-ring and the fire died.  "But for you...?"  He looked up again.  "You will always find a way to a war.  If there is none, you will make it."

And, gaze unwavering, he faded from sight.  Gordon stood frozen, staring at the cold ashes of the fire, feeling the chill again, but not the thrill.

Then, slowly, he turned away to the sea, numb to the heart, realizing that his soul must have needed a great deal more healing...

And sorely disappointed that the hunt was done.

 

*           *           *

 

He saw the one-handed man again, fifteen years later, as he walked by the sea, newly returned from Egypt, where he had done such excellent work for the Khedive—excellent, but so well done that he had stirred up his own small war against the slave-traders who toiled their heart-sick goods across the wastes of the Sudan.  But though he had found war, he had found few willing to fight him...  And he had not found death.

He walked by the water, a man in his middle years, but still hale and hearty with the iron regimen he forced upon himself—careful diet, punishing exercises.  He looked up toward the rising land, and noticed a man bent over a fire.  With a shock, he recognized the skins, the bronze circlet.  Surely this could not be the same man, though, for he no longer seemed old, no older than Gordon himself...

But the head lifted, the piercing-eyed gaze stabbed into him, and Gordon saw it was the same man.

"Dine with me, Gordon."

Slowly, Gordon sat by the fire.  He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the meat; he knew it too well, now: goat.  "What of the hunt?"

"There will be good hunting indeed.  Would you be the hunter, or the quarry?"

Gordon felt excitement surge, and an echo of the old familiar terror—but only an echo now, and his ancient greed was stronger than ever, almost desperate.  "The hunter, by choice," he said slowly.

"Do you truly care?"

"Nay."  Gordon almost smiled, discovering with surprise and delight that it was true.  "So that it be for the Lord, I wish only the hunt."

"Then you shall have it.  The lion stands at bay."  The one-handed man rose and turned away.

Gordon did not watch him go.  Slowly, he took the spit from the fire.

 

*           *           *

 

"Egyptians?" Sutekh spat.  "These weaklings are nothing compared to the Egyptians of old!  The Ansar who follow this Mahdi, now—they are worthy successors to the ancients who worshiped me as their war-god!  There is so little of their blood left, in these Turkish and Arab creatures to the north, that I have no love for them.  But the Mahdi is their successor in heart, at least—worthy to follow the Pharaohs of the First Dynasty!  He shall hunt your pale Northern worms out of the Nile Valley; he shall grind them to paste!"

Tyr stood alone against Sutekh and laughed.  His good hand twitched, but Sutekh did not strike—yet.

 

*           *           *

 

Gordon saw the one-handed man for the last time, as he stood on the steps at Khartoum, watching the horses and camels boil up out of the desert, their riders screaming and brandishing their swords.

"The Khedive told you only to withdraw the troops, Gordon."

Gordon looked up in surprise, quickly masked.  "Can you walk outside England, then?"

"It is rare that I have any wish to.  You should have with­drawn the troops."

Gordon said evenly, "England should never retreat."

"Death is your wish, Gordon, not that of your troops."

Gordon's gaze faltered.  "I know.  I should have sent them away, should have stood here alone—but I was sure England would send an army to bear me home, in spite of Gladstone and his liberals."

"Even as you said—the people forced his hand," the one-handed man confirmed.  "The people, and the news­papers.  The army comes—but its vanguard will not arrive for two more days."

Gordon bowed his head.  "My soul is heavy with the deaths of my soldiers."

"But light with your own?"

"England must never retreat!"

"Then England will be hacked to bits."

Gordon gave the one-eyed man a long, level gaze, amazed to realize that the stare of those eyes no longer stabbed into him.  "That is acceptable.  Bloodied, but in­domitable."

The one-handed man held his gaze and nodded.  "The lion does not retreat where he has made his den.  But what good can he do if he is slain?  What good is your death?"

"As good as my life," Gordon retorted.  "If I am slain, England must send an army to rescue my bones."

"It is even as you have said, Gordon of Khartoum," the one-handed man said, his eyes gleaming with pride.  "They shall come; in fourteen years, they shall avenge you.  So much for England.  What shall you achieve for Gordon?"

"Gordon matters not at all."

"Gordon shall find death," the one-handed man cor­rected.  "Yet you have had glory, whether you wished it or not.  In glory you have lived, and in glory you shall die."

Gordon did, as the Ansar swooped down upon him.  The tribesmen came screaming into the garden, but checked at the sight of the tan, relaxed Englishman, one hand on his saber, the other on his revolver.  Then battle-lust reasserted itself; the tribesmen screamed, forgetting the Mahdi's or­ders that Gordon was not to be harmed, and the spear struck into his chest, spinning him around.  Even as he fell, more spears found his body.  Then a tribesman stepped up and his sword swung down.

The Mahdi cried out in anguish when they showed him Gordon's head.

"The children of my heart have triumphed!" Sutekh ex­ulted.  "Begone, One-Hand—you have no place here!"

"Even so," Tyr said, as imperturbable as ever.  "I go—but I shall come again."

And he did.

 

THE END