He would not consider whether,
or to what degree, the man was a maniac; no, he would not. A
subacid smile was the only comment he allowed himself. His
position, indeed, was an extremely difficult one, and all his
dexterity would be needed if he was to emerge from it with
credit.
On one side of him was a veering and vacillating Government; on
the other, a frenzied enthusiast. It was his business to
interpret to the first the wishes, or rather the inspirations, of
the second, and to convey to the second the decisions, or rather
the indecisions, of the first. A weaker man would have floated
helplessly on the ebb and flow of the Cabinet's wavering
policies; a rasher man would have plunged headlong into Gordon's
schemes. He did neither; with a singular courage and a singular
caution he progressed along a razor-edge. He devoted all his
energies to the double task of evolving a reasonable policy out
of Gordon's intoxicated telegrams, and of inducing the divided
Ministers at home to give their sanction to what he had evolved.
He might have succeeded, if he had not had to reckon with yet
another irreconcilable; Time was a vital element in the
situation, and Time was against him. When the tribes round
Khartoum rose, the last hope of a satisfactory solution vanished.
He was the first to perceive the altered condition of affairs;
long before the Government, long before Gordon himself, he
understood that the only remaining question was that of the
extrication of the Englishmen from Khartoum.
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