Barakah delighted in her son’s account of the disorders. His excitement and the animation of each glance and gesture provided her with pictures upon which she brooded in the vacancy of summer days. The air which drifted through her lattice was oppressive, the sunlight like a furnace fire without; the voices of the street complained of dust and heat; the ceaseless buzz of flies benumbed the brain; the call for water rang incessantly through all the house, and even Umm ed-Dahak felt too weak to talk. But Barakah was happy, since Muhammad spent much time with her, finding her conversation more congenial to his patriotic mood than that of Yûsuf. In his absence she lay still and smoked, and quenched her thirst at frequent intervals, taking scant notice of her little daughter—the only other of her many children who had managed to survive the second year. Umm ed-Dahak loved the child and schooled her privately, telling her stories of man’s love and woman’s duty, and teaching her to pose and ogle in the proper way. But for the rest she was of no importance; Muhammad’s known affection for her was her only merit.
One afternoon Muhammad came in with a mien of wild excitement and, having kissed his mother’s hand, cried out:
“Most dreadful news! O horror! O revenge! The English have destroyed Iskenderîyeh with their cruel guns! The English only, since the French, more honourable, fled from the hateful sight with tears of shame. Simply because the forts were being mended, and work was not relaxed at their command. But, praise to Allah, we have hurt them also. Quite half their fleet has been destroyed by our brave fire. After this, we give no quarter—no, by Allah! It is holy war. Muhammad Tewfik is proclaimed a scoundrel. Our Arâbi is Dictator. The army is to be augmented fourfold by forced levies. I met a boy, no older than myself, who goes to fight. I go this minute to implore my father to let me likewise join the army in the field.”
“Thy age is but fifteen. O Lord, he must not go!” cried out his mother in an agony of apprehension.
“I am a man full-grown, proficient in all exercises that belong to war. As young as I are going. Think, it is against the English, O my mother—thy vile enemies!”
Embracing her without a thought for her despair, he left her in great haste to find his father.
XXX
Yûsuf Pasha was upon the point of going out when his son was shown into his presence in his private room. He smiled upon the stripling’s prayer to be allowed to fight, but said:
“No, no, my son. Thou art too young as yet. Wait till the war is ended and then join the fray.”
With that he patted the boy’s cheek, bestowed his blessing on him, and went out, little guessing that he left despair behind him. A carriage waited for him at the door. An armed slave scrambled up beside the driver. It was the hour of sunset. Two months since the ways would have been merry at that hour. But now the passengers were few and fully armed; they looked suspicious and, where groups were formed, the talk seemed guarded. A curse had fallen on the happy city. The sunset blushed on her high roofs, the crescent flashed on all her spires and domes, and in the gullies which were streets lay depths of shade; yet no one felt the rapture of the evening.
Yûsuf, lolling in the carriage, gnawed his black moustache and cursed the revolutionaries from his heart. He had attained the wisdom which comes easily to middle age, hated disturbance and distrusted novelty. The nervous passion which had marked his youth still dwelt in him; but he reserved its transports for the calls of private life; having another wife besides the Englishwoman, and two concubines, whom he kept in the provincial centre whither public business often called him. Politics had been for him a well-ruled game, on which a man would be a fool to waste vitality. As a functionary, he had lounged on sofas, telling beads, dictating orders to his secretaries, at ease except when called before superiors; until this military rising scared his soul. Its swiftness and success seemed downright fiendish.
One day a painstaking, obedient native officer had been selected by the Khedive Ismaîl to organize a riot hostile to the Frank commissioners. He seemed so trusty and discreet that Ismaîl forbore to execute him for the trifling service. Within two years he was the idol of the native soldiers, the spokesman of their grievances against the foreign Turks; in five, he was the incubus and dread of Egypt, first Minister of War and now Dictator. That first employment recommended him to schemers as one who did not fear to lead rebellion. Straightforward and excitable, extremely zealous in whatever charge he undertook, he was thrust forward by the clever ones to posts of hazard. His prompters, Asiatics, saw the bounds of his intelligence and thought to keep him in their hands, a priceless instrument. But they had not allowed for the inflation of the African, who, being once exalted, swelled and swelled until his greatness overawed its very founders.
An honest man and a good Muslim, Ahmad Arâbi lacked the cleverness of the conspirator; nor was he one. The sordid plots which guided his career were spun behind him; while he pressed onward with clear brow and conquering smile—a doomed man, in the view of calm spectators.
Yûsuf had known Arâbi for some years and liked him personally; but the Khedive Muhammad Tewfik was his friend from childhood. Entreated by the agitators to take office with them, he had referred the question to the good Khedive,
