These tasks accomplished, or placed in the way of accomplishment, there remained no let or hindrance to his departure; and by the end of October he was in Khartoum. But even then he felt uncertain as to his ultimate plans, and merely telegraphed to the Cairo authorities that he intended to come down for a time. With his back turned on the scene of his labours, the old desire not to leave his work half done came over him, and all the personal inconvenience and incessant hardship and worry of the task were forgotten in the belief that he was called on by God "to open the country thoroughly to both Lakes." He saw very clearly that what he had accomplished in the three years of his stay did not provide a permanent or complete cure of the evils arising out of the slave-trade and the other accompaniments of misgovernment, and he did not like to be beaten, which he admitted he was if he retired without remedying anything. These reflections explain why, even when leaving, his thoughts were still of returning and resuming the work, little more than commenced, in those Mussulman countries, where he foresaw a crisis that must come about soon.
But these thoughts and considerations did not affect his desire for a change to Lower Egypt, or even to visit home; and leaving Khartoum on 12th November he reached Cairo on 2nd December. He then formally placed his resignation in the Khedive's hands, but it was neither accepted nor declined; and the Khedive, in some mysterious manner, seems to have arrived at the sound conclusion that after a brief rest General Gordon would sicken of inaction, and that it would be no difficult manner to lure him back to that work in the Soudan which had already established its spell over him. Of that work, considerable as it was as the feat of a single man, it need only be said that it would have remained transitory in its effect and inconclusive in its results if General Gordon had finally turned his back on it at the close of his tenure of the post of Governor of the Equatorial Province at the end of the year 1876. When he left Cairo in the middle of December for England there was really very little reason to doubt that at the right moment he would be ready to take up the work again.