All this time the Sirdar's face had been stamped with an expression of sadness, and now he was seen to be addressing the Consul-General in a few low-toned words, but his warning, if such it were, seemed to be quite unheeded. With increasing excitement and intense bitterness the Consul-General turned hotly upon the foreign representatives and said—
"Gentlemen of the diplomatic corps, joint trustees with me of peace and civilisation in a backward country, you thought you were using the unrest of the Egyptians to serve your own ends, but listen, and I will tell you what you were really doing."
Then, more fiercely than ever, his face aflame, his hoarse voice breaking into harsh cries, he disclosed his knowledge of the Egyptian plot as he understood it to be—how the final aim, the vast and luminous fact to which all Moslem energies were directed, was the establishment of an Arab Empire which should have for its first purpose to resist the Christian nations; how this Empire had originated in the mind of the Khedive, who wished to put himself at the head of it; and how, since it was necessary in an Eastern country to give a religious colour to political intriguing, Ishmael Ameer, the mock Mahdi, the fanatic-hypocrite, had been employed to intimidate the British authorities by bringing up the scourings of the Soudan to their very doors.
This fell on the whole company, innocent and guilty, like a thunderclap.
The great Proconsul, the strong and practical intellect which had governed the State so long, had been deceived on the main issue, had been fooled, and was fighting a gigantic phantom!
"Is this news to you, gentlemen of the diplomatic corps? Ask your friends, the Ulema! Is it news to you, too, gentlemen of El Azhar? Ask your Grand Cadi! But that is not all. You have had no scruples, no shame! In hitting at England you have not hesitated to hit at England's servant—myself. You have hit me where I could least bear the blow. By lies, by hypocrisies, by false pretences you have got hold of my son, my only son, my only relative, all that was left to me ... the one in whom my hopes in life were centred and——"
Here the old man's voice faltered, and it was afterwards remembered that at this moment the Bedouin Sheikh rose in obvious agitation, made some steps forward, and then stopped.
At the next instant the Consul-General had recovered himself, and, with increasing strength and still greater ferocity, was hurling his last reproaches upon his enemies.
The Consul-General was hurling his last reproaches upon his enemies