“No, the slaughterers here nowadays are more barbarous. Not the city-building monarchs, but the nomadic chiefs who force themselves to the height of power with their horrible religious despotism—your Mahdis. It is a wonder that they find so many followers, but they do.”
“Fanaticism, I suppose,” said Frank.
“Yes, that and the love of conquest, with its additions in the shape of plunder. For years past these vast tracts of fertile land bordering the river have gone back to waste, village after village of industrious people having been massacred or forced to flee for their lives.”
“But—I have read so little about the Khedival rule—why has not the Egyptian Government put a stop to all this frightful persecution?”
“From want of power, my lad. The country has been too big, the army too small, and the invading tribes from the south too warlike a fighting race to be withstood. There is the consequence—a smiling land, irrigated by the mighty river which brings down the rich tropic mud from the highlands of the south, utterly depopulated, and strewn with the wretched people’s bones.”
“And how long is this to last?” said Frank, as he thought of his brother’s fate.
“Till England stretches forth her hand to sweep the blasphemous invader from the land he destroys. It is coming, Frank, but the old lion moves slowly and takes some time to rouse.”
“But when he does make his spring—!”
“Yes, when he does! The Indian tiger learned his power then. But the sun is getting too hot for a political lecture, my lad. Come, use your glass again. There’s another enemy about to cross our track.”