He would lead the troops onwards with the little cane he nearly always carried.

THE CHILDREN'S HEROES SERIES

THE STORY OF

GENERAL GORDON

BY
JEANIE LANG

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, LTD.,
35 and 36 Paternoster Row, E.C.
AND EDINBURGH
1906

TO
ARCHIE AND BERTIE DICKSON

AND ALL BOYS WHO ARE GOING
TO SERVE THEIR KING
ON LAND OR SEA

PREFACE

DEAR ARCHIE AND BERTIE,

When boys read the old fairy tales, and the stories of King Arthur'sRound Table, and the Knights of the Faerie Queen, they sometimes wondersadly why the knights that they see are not like those of the oldendays.

Knights now are often stout old gentlemen who never rode horses or hadlances in their hands, but who made much money in the City, and whohave no more furious monsters near them than their own motor-cars.

Only a very few knights are like what your own grandfather was.

"I wish I had lived long ago," say some of the boys. "Then I mighthave killed dragons, and fought for my Queen, and sought for the HolyGrail. Nobody does those things now. Though I can be a soldier andfight for the King, that is a quite different thing."

But if the boys think this, it is because they do not quite understand.

Even now there live knights as pure as Sir Galahad, as brave and trueas St. George. They may not be what the world calls "knights"; yetthey are fighting against all that is not good, and true, and honest,and clean, just as bravely as the knights fought in days of old.

And it is of one of those heroes, who sought all his life to find whatwas holy, who fought all his life against evil, and who died servinghis God, his country, and his Queen, that I want to tell you now.

Your friend,
    JEANIE LANG.

CONTENTS