'
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 ... 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... 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.
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