"Don't stand there like a parson in a pulpit. Sit down and tell me all about it," whereupon Gordon took a seat by the desk.
"The only riot I witnessed in Alexandria, sir, was due simply to the bad feeling which always exists between the lowest elements of the European and Egyptian inhabitants. Ishmael Ameer had nothing to do with it. On the contrary he helped to put it down."
"You heard what he had said in the mosques?"
"I had one of his sermons reported to me, sir, and it was teaching such as would have had your own sympathy, being in line with what you have always said yourself about the corruptions of Islam, and the necessity of uplifting the Egyptian woman as a means of raising the Egyptian man."
"So you decided, it seems——"
"I decided, Father, that to arrest Ishmael Ameer as one who was promulgating sedition, and inciting the people to rebellion, would be an act of injustice which you could not wish me to perpetrate in your name."
The Consul-General put up his glasses, looked for a letter which lay on the desk, glanced at it, and said—
"I see you say that before you arrived in Alexandria it was known that you were to come."
"That is so, sir."
"And that after the riot you counselled the Governor to consent to the man's request that he should preach in public."