He Vacillated Between A Number Of
Suggestions, And The Last He Came To Was The Most Remarkable, At The Same
Time That It Revealed More Clearly Than Any Other The Vain And
Meretricious Character Of The Man.
In his second interview with Major
Gordon he proposed that that officer should join him, and combining the
whole force of the Europeans and the disciplined Chinese, seize Soochow,
and establish an independent authority of their own.
It was the old
filibustering idea, revived under the most unfavorable circumstances, of
fighting for their own hand, dragging the European name in the dirt, and
founding an independent authority of some vague, undefinable and
transitory character. Major Gordon listened to the unfolding of this
scheme of miserable treachery, and only his strong sense of the utter
impossibility, and indeed the ridiculousness of the project, prevented his
contempt and indignation finding forcible expression. Burgevine, the
traitor to the imperial cause, the man whose health would not allow him to
do his duty to his new masters in Soochow, thus revealed his plan for
defying all parties, and for deciding the fate of the Dragon Throne. The
only reply he received was the cold one that it would be better and wiser
to confine his attention to the question of whether he intended to yield
or not, instead of discussing idle schemes of "vaulting ambition."
Meantime, Chung Wang had come down from Nankin to superintend the defense
of Soochow; and in face of a more capable opponent he still did not
despair of success, or at the least of making a good fight of it.
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