independent footing as far as their own departments were concerned. In the spring of 1881 they were both undoubtedly intriguing against Riaz, but it was with the object of restoring their own party chief Sherif Pasha, to power. This puts a different complexion upon Mahmud Sami's action, and I fancy might find many a parallel in the annals of our own English Cabinets. His part, as I see it, throughout the troubles that were coming was a perfectly loyal one, both to the Constitutional and the National cause, and he paid dearer for his constancy, for he was a rich man and so had more to lose, than any other concerned in the rebellion.
The Khedive's part in the next seven months was far less straightforward. He seems throughout to have been torn with irresolutions, jealousies, fears, and ambitions. Riaz' enemies had suggested to him that that masterful Minister was plotting against him to supplant him as Khedive, an altogether absurd suspicion which he nevertheless at times gave ear to. At other times Arabi's growing popularity aroused his jealousy, and he was constantly shifting from one dread to the other, while his ambition was to regain his own or rather his father's lost authority. The Anglo-French control irked him sorely, and he knew that by the bulk of his subjects he was disliked and despised. His Circassian entourage, the men of his Court, were all violent against the fellah officers and were constantly urging him to take strong measures against them, while Sherif Pasha and the Constitutionalists were for his making use of them on the lines already attempted to get rid of Riaz and the Consular subjection in which he lay, by another military demonstration. Such was the state of things in the month of August when the general ferment in the Mohammedan world, caused by the French invasion of Tunis, brought matters at Cairo to a definite crisis.