"My children and all my family join themselves to me, and pay you their best respects.
"Further, I beg to inform you that the messenger who had been previously sent through me, carrying Government correspondence to your brother, Gordon Pasha, has reached him, and remitted the letter he had in his own hands, and without the interference of any other person. The details of his history are mentioned in the enclosed report, which I hope you will kindly read.—Believe me, honourable Lady, to remain yours most faithfully,
Zebehr Rahamah."
Report Enclosed.
"When I came to Cairo and resided in it as I was before, I kept myself aside of all political questions connected with the Soudan or others, according to the orders given me by the Government to that effect. But as a great rumour was spread over by the high Government officials who arrived from the Soudan, and were with H.E. General Gordon Pasha at Khartoum before and after it fell, that all my properties in that country had been looted, and my relations ill-treated, I have been bound, by a hearty feeling of compassion, to ask the above said officials what they knew about it, and whether the messenger sent by me with the despatches addressed by the Government to General Gordon Pasha had reached Khartoum and remitted what he had.
"These officials informed me verbally that on the 25th Ramadan 1301 (March 1884), at the time they were sitting at Khartoum with General Gordon, my messenger, named Fadhalla Kabileblos, arrived there, and remitted to the General in his proper hands, and without the interference of anyone, all the despatches he had on him. After that the General expressed his greatest content for the receipt of the correspondence, and immediately gave orders to the artillery to fire twenty-five guns, in sign of rejoicing, and in order to show to the enemy his satisfaction for the news of the arrival of British troops. General Gordon then treated my messenger cordially, and requested the Government to pay him a sum of £500 on his return to Cairo, as a gratuity for all the dangers he had run in accomplishing his faithful mission. Besides that, the General gave him, when he embarked with Colonel Stewart, £13 to meet his expenses on the journey. A few days after the arrival of my messenger at Khartoum, H.E. General Gordon thought it proper to appoint Colonel Stewart for coming to Cairo on board a man-of-war with a secret mission, and several letters, written by the General in English and Arabic, were put in two envelopes, one addressed to the British and the other to the Egyptian Government, and were handed over to my messenger, with the order to return to Cairo with Colonel Stewart on board a special steamer.
"But when Khartoum fell, and the rebels got into it, making all the inhabitants prisoners, the Government officials above referred to were informed that my messenger had been arrested, and all the correspondence that he had on him, addressed by General Gordon to the Government, was seized; for when the steamer on board of which they were arrived at Abou Kamar she went on rocks, and having been broken, the rebels made a massacre of all those who were on board; and as, on seeing the letters carried by my messenger, they found amongst them a private letter addressed to me by H.E. Gordon Pasha, expressing his thanks for my faithfulness to him, the rebels declared me an infidel, and decided to seize all my goods and properties, comprising them in their Beit-el-Mal (that is, Treasury) as it happened in fact.
"Moreover, the members of my family who were in the Soudan were treated most despotically, and their existence was rendered most difficult.
"Such a state of things being incompatible with the suspicion thrown upon me as regards my faithfulness to the Government, I have requested the high Government officials referred to above to give me an official certificate to that effect, which they all gave; and the enclosed copies will make known to those who take the trouble to read them that I have been honest and faithful in all what has been entrusted to me. This is the summary of the information I have obtained from persons I have reason to believe."
Some further evidence of Zebehr's feelings is given in the following letter from him to Sir Henry Gordon, dated in October 1884:—
"Your favour of 3rd September has been duly received, for which I thank you. I herewith enclose my photograph, and hope that you will kindly send me yours.
"The letter that you wished me to send H.E. General Gordon was sent on the 18th August last, registered. I hope that you will excuse me in delaying to reply, for when your letter arrived I was absent, and when I returned I was very sorry that they had not forwarded the letter to me; otherwise I should have replied at once.
"I had closed this letter with the photograph when I received fresh news, to the effect that the messengers we sent to H.E. Gordon Pasha were on their way back. I therefore kept back the letter and photograph till they arrived, and I should see what tidings they brought.... You have told me that Lord Northbrook knows what has passed between us. I endeavoured and devised to see His Excellency, but I did not succeed, as he was very busy. I presented a petition to him that he should help to recover the property of which I was robbed unjustly, and which H.E. your brother ordered to be restored, and at the same time to right me for the oppression I had suffered. I have had no answer up to this present moment.
"Hoping that H.E. Gordon Pasha will return in safety, accept my best regards, dear Sir, and present my compliments to your sister.
"Zebehr.
"28th Oct. 1884."
To sum up on this important matter. There never was any doubt that the authorities in the Delta took on themselves a grave responsibility when they remained deaf to all Gordon's requests for the co-operation of Zebehr. They would justify themselves by saying that they had a tender regard for Gordon's own safety. At least this was the only point on which they showed it, and they would not like to be deprived of the small credit attached to it; but the evidence I have now adduced renders even this plea of doubtful force. As to the value of Zebehr's co-operation, if Gordon could have obtained it there cannot be two opinions. Gordon did not exaggerate in the least degree when he said that on the approach of Zebehr the star of the Mahdi would at once begin to wane, or, in other words, that he looked to Zebehr's ability and influence as the sure way to make his own mission a success.
On the very night of his interview with Zebehr, and within forty-eight hours of his arrival in Cairo, General Gordon and his English companion, with four Egyptian officers, left by train for Assiout, en route to Khartoum.