The Governor of Fashoda was vain and egotistic, and believed he was the only man fitted for the career sketched out by the brilliant Englishman.
But what ambition had Ponsonby?
In the recesses of his own heart he reasoned in this fashion:
“The governor is ambitious—he is a tool in my hands—he has no scruples; he would use the assassin’s dagger just as readily as the soldier’s sword. The army wants a bold, dashing leader. Under my guidance he shall win everything until the last step—then I will, as minister of war, effect a coup d’etat, and Hubert Ponsonby shall become Sultan Hubert the First of Egypt.”
So we see, with an author’s privilege, just how the Governor of Fashoda was to be used as a cat’s-paw to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for Ponsonby’s benefit.
The whole thing was feasible if the Mahdi could be defeated and crushed.
Rauf Pasha was afraid of the growing power of the Mahdi.
Egypt itself was being converted to the belief in the claims of the Mahdi, and in the mosques of Constantinople the Mahdi was openly referred to as having made his appearance.
The conquerer of the Mahdi would therefore be all powerful.
It would have been as well if Hubert Ponsonby had remembered the old Irish story of the Skibbereen market women.