Gordon bowed without speaking. He was struggling to compose himself, and something was whispering to him, "Above all things, be calm!"
"I regret to say the Ulema have ignored the order which his Excellency sent to them," said the Consul-General, indicating the Pasha.
"Ignored?"
"That's what it comes to, though it's true they asked me to receive the man Ishmael Ameer and to consider a suggestion."
"You did, sir?"
"I did. The man came, I saw him, and heard what he had to say—and now I am more than ever convinced that he is a public peril."
"A peril?"
"First, because he advises officers and men to abstain from military service on the ground that war is incompatible with religion. That is opposed to the existing. order of society, and therefore harmful to good government."
"I agree," said the General, swinging restlessly in his revolving chair.
"Next, because he tells the Egyptian people that where the authority of the law is opposed to what he is pleased to consider the commandments of God they are to obey God and not the Government. That is to make every man a law to himself, and to cause the rule of the Government to be defied."