up his mind to place himself under Seymour's protection. Beresford's experience of the weeks he had then spent at Alexandria, I may explain, had given him a profound contempt of Tewfik, and a certain sympathy with Arabi and the fellahin who had carried on the war in spite of their prince's defection.
Be this, however, as it may, the conduct of the Khedive at the Council and the fact that he had given his name to the orders issued for a war à outrance imposed a perfectly legal aspect on the subsequent National defence, and invalidated, according to all Mohammedan rule and practice, the Khedive's counter orders when he had passed over to the enemy's side. This must be remembered if we are rightly to understand the Nationalists' legal case, and the view taken of the position by plain patriotic minds when their prince's perfidy gradually became known. The Mohammedan view about war is a simple one. When blows have been struck and war publicly announced by the Chief of the State, it is his duty and the duty of all his people to continue it until some definite victory has been achieved or reverse sustained. A prince made captive during the war by the enemy is by the fact incapacitated from giving any further valid orders, and à fortiori a prince who has turned traitor; and it was in this light that Tewfik was considered by his subjects until brought back by the force of English arms as their restored, but unloved lord to Cairo. Nothing of this aspect of the case will, of course, be found in any English narrative, but, in place of it, absurd laudations of a prince to be admired as "loyal" for the sole illogical reason that he showed himself loyal to England and served her through the war as her unashamed accomplice. But I will return to these matters later.
A second point which it is necessary should be insisted on is the proper apportionment of responsibility for the maintenance of law and order throughout Egypt, and for the strategical conduct of the war, between Arabi and the other Nationalist leaders who worked with him during those eventful two months. The facts as I have been able to ascertain