“The Lord have mercy on us! It is gross impiety,” screamed Fitnah Khânum. “Does not the august Corân lay down strict rules for the control of slaves? Is it not therefore Allah’s will that they exist?”
“The trade in slaves is holy,” cried Gulbeyzah; “bringing every year a thousand converts out of heathendom. If some are slain, it is no matter, since the death of heathens is uncounted, like the death of beasts. Without the cruel raids, the bloodshed, the survivors had not known salvation. Praise be to Allah, they cannot suppress the trade in us white people, since a father’s right to sell his child resides in nature. Only since the English meddle do we hear such wickedness.”
Besides the slave-trade, good old customs were abolished—one ceremony called the trampling, in particular, in which a sheykh, renowned for piety, was wont to ride on horseback over strewn believers. Some people thought the world was coming to an end, and looked for the appearance of the final prophet. The times were full of omens, portents, monstrous births. The French and English, in collusion, gave command in Egypt; the monarch was a puppet in their hands. The apathy of men amazed the women looking on. The good Khedive appeared a devil to those hot non-combatants; rebellion a plain duty upon all believers. They prayed for a deliverer to be raised up; and in the absence of the prophet whom they half expected, applauded the exertions of a simple soldier, who ventured to oppose the wicked rulers.
With the exception of some Turks, who sneered from pride of race, the whole harîm acclaimed Arâbi from his first appearance as a champion. The women viewed the question very simply. Here, on one hand, was a man who wished to free the land from foreign interference, whose cry of Egypt for the Egyptians, must mean Egypt for the Muslims, since the Copts were nobody; on the other, an infirm, if not a wicked, ruler who was letting all the privilege of El Islâm be torn away. In vain their men assured them the Khedive was a good Muslim, and only deferential to the Franks from sheer expediency; that Arâbi’s faction was the work of clever rascals, and boasted not one man of solid parts. They took religious ground and would not listen. They taught their children to admire Arâbi. Muhammad, now a student in the school of war, assisted by his faithful Ali, fought five boys who dared to ridicule the peasant soldier. Though beaten many times the two did not give way, though Ali, for his own part, would have fled thrice over. But Muhammad was indomitable. Bruised and bleeding, he returned with fury to the charge, till his opponents fled in pure religious terror of such dauntless rage. A few weeks later the whole land was cringing before Arâbi’s power. And then excitements followed thick and fast. Muhammad brought his mother all the latest rumours. One day it was:
“Great tidings, O my mother! All the Franks are flying! Ali and I have been to watch them at the railway station. Such a crowd! The faithful, past all patience, have risen up at Tantah and Iskenderîyeh and slain thousands of them.”
A number of the loyal Turks were also flying. Amînah Khânum and Bedr-ul-Budûr came to take leave of Barakah. They were bound for Alexandria, in the train of the Khedive, and thence would take ship for Constantinople if things grew no better. Muhammad, when informed of their departure, rendered praise to Allah.
“They are vanquished,” he remarked. “But would to Allah that we had more Turks on our side. These fellâhîn, though braggarts, are great cowards. They need the whip to urge them into battle. I, who am half a Turk and half an Englishman, cannot endure the sluggishness of this Nile mud.”
The boy forgot the portion of his blood which was derived from Fitnah Khânum, his paternal grandmother. It was Nile mud of the thickest, but it did not show in him. All hot and noble counsels moved him to enthusiasm; the lukewarm and the philosophical enraged his soul. Stupidity or insolence in an inferior he could not brook. If his commands were not obeyed at once and with intelligence, he struck hard with the first instrument that came to hand, and called down Allah’s wrath on the offender. The old Pasha was delighted by those outbursts, as showing the commanding spirit of his Turkish race.
“When all these low-born troubles have passed over, we must procure him some small government,” he said to Yûsuf, who acquiesced with a pathetic smile. He had not that supreme contempt for the Egyptian rebels which kept his aged father calm amid the storm. He held a good position, and he feared to lose it; whereas his father had retired from public life.