intervene. Tewfik, therefore, as usual was playing for the double chance, and was resolved clearly on one thing only, to side with the strongest party.
There is a curious despatch in the Blue Books which shows what he said to his English advisers. As early as the 6th of July he was made acquainted with Seymour's intention to bombard, and had apparently been urged to place himself for safety on board one of the English ships. But this did not suit his personal fears or the waiting game he was resolved on, and he sent to Colvin to acquaint him with what his plan was in regard to his safety during the firing. He could not do otherwise—so we read—than remain in Egypt. He could not desert those who had stood by him faithfully in the crisis, or abandon Egypt when attacked by a foreign Power, merely, as it would be said, to secure his personal safety. He would, therefore, retire to a palace on the Mahmoudieh Canal with Dervish Pasha. And he remarked that the more rapidly the whole affair was conducted, the less would be the danger to himself personally. And this was the program he adhered to, except that he finally decided on retiring, not to the Mahmoudieh Palace, but to his country palace at Ramleh, eight miles farther from Alexandria, as a still safer place from the chance firing of Seymour's guns.
Shortly after the war I had a curious confirmation of Tewfik's indecision from no less authoritative a source than Lord Charles Beresford, who had commanded the Condor at the bombardment and had acted as Provost-Marshal in Alexandria after it, and who told me that in a moment of unusual frankness the Khedive had one day explained to him the reason of his remaining ashore during the fight, as being nothing else than his extreme perplexity as to which of the combatants would prove the better fighter. The general belief in Egypt had been that the English ships would be sunk, and he had been in a state of panic doubt all day at Ramleh, running every half hour to the roof of the palace to see how it fared with them. It was only when he discovered in the evening that they remained intact, while the forts had been silenced, that he finally made