The Pashas had determined
at last that they had no further use for this honest and peculiar
Englishman. It was arranged that one of his confidential
dispatches should be published in the newspapers; naturally, it
contained indiscretions; there was a universal outcry-- the man
was insubordinate, and mad. He departed under a storm of obloquy.
It seemed impossible that he should ever return to Egypt.
On his way home he stopped in Paris, saw the English Ambassador,
Lord Lyons, and speedily came into conflict with him over
Egyptian
affairs. There ensued a heated correspondence, which was finally
closed by a letter from Gordon, ending as follows: 'I have some
comfort in thinking that in ten or fifteen years' time it will
matter
little to either of us. A black box, six feet six by three feet
wide,
will then contain all that is left of Ambassador, or Cabinet
Minister,
or of your humble and obedient servant.'
He arrived in England early in 1880 ill and exhausted; and it
might have been supposed that after the terrible activities of
his African exile he would have been ready to rest. But the very
opposite was the case; the next three years were the most
momentous of his life. He hurried from post to post, from
enterprise to enterprise, from continent to continent, with a
vertiginous rapidity.
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