CHAPTER VI BEGINNINGS OF THE REVOLUTION IN EGYPT

The affair came to a crisis about the end of the year 1880, when one evening, Arabi being with other officers at the house of Nejm el Din Pasha, he learned that it had been decided at the Ministry that he and his fellow Colonel of the Black Regiment, Abd-el-Aal Bey Helmi, were to be deprived of their commands and dismissed the service; and almost at the same time news was brought him that Ali Fehmi was at his own house and desired to see him. On returning home, therefore, he found Ali Fehmi waiting for him, and with him Abd-el-Aal who confirmed what he had heard, and after taking counsel it was decided that they should all three together—for Ali Fehmi expressed himself willing to throw in his lot with theirs—go to the Prime Minister and insist upon an end being put to their persecution by the dismissal of Osman Rifky; and this the next day they did. Arabi's own account given to me of their interview with Riaz is interesting and I have no doubt correct: > "We went," he says, "with our petition to the Ministry of the Interior and asked to see Riaz. We were shown into an outer room and waited while the Minister read our document in the inner room. Presently he came out. 'Your petition,' he said, 'is muhlik, a hanging matter. What is it you want? to change the Ministry? And what would you put in its place? Whom do you propose to carry on the government?' And I answered him, 'Ya saat el Basha, is Egypt then a woman who has borne but eight sons and then become