guidance of the stars and of a young naval officer, and doubtless to those who took part in it it seemed that the English army was groping its way blindly to the unknown, but in reality the road had been made plain for them by the secret means I have alluded to. Two of Arabi's minor officers, both holding responsible positions, had accepted, a few days before, the bribes offered them by the Khedivial agents. The names of these two deserve, to their eternal shame, to be put on record. The first was Abd-el-Rahman Bey Hassan, commander of the advanced guard of cavalry, who was placed with his regiment outside the lines in a position commanding the desert road from the east, but who on the night in question shifted his men some considerable distance to the left, so as to leave the English advance unobstructed. The second was the already mentioned Ali Bey Yusuf, in command of a portion of the central lines
where the trenches were so little formidable that they could be surmounted by any active artillery. By the account generally given, and Arabi's own, he not only left the point that night unguarded, but put out a lantern for the guidance of the assailants. Other names have been mentioned to me, but not with the authority of these two, and I therefore prefer not to put them down. As to the two I have given, their position as traitors was notorious for years at Cairo, as little secret was made of it by them, especially by Ali Bey Yusuf, who complained freely of the scurvy treatment he had received for his services. £1,000 indeed had been paid him down in gold before the battle, but a further promise of £10,000 had never been kept to him, nor did he succeed in obtaining more from the Government, when he had spent his first round sum, than a poor pension of £12 a month, which was paid him to his death.
Arabi and the rest of the army, deluded by Saoud into a false security as to that night at least, slept profoundly, the poor men in their trenches and Arabi at his headquarters, about a mile to the rear. Thus, without any warning, they suddenly found the enemy upon them, the lines crossed at their weak point by the English, and a little later artillery in