Chapter XVI The Campaign of Tel-el-Kebir

surveillance, with a message informing him that as Seymour threatened a renewal of the bombardment he should have to withdraw the garrison, and inviting him to retire with them beyond range of the English guns and so to Cairo. Arabi without doubt ought to have gone himself a second time to see that the invitation was not on any pretext evaded and have carried Tewfik, if necessary, by force as a prisoner away with him, for the example of the Bey of Tunis was before him, and he had sufficient experience of the Khedive's craft to make it impossible to trust anything to his honour. Arabi's negligence in this matter was a fatal error. Arabi was, however, apparently too occupied that morning in arranging the military evacuation to give the time necessary for another visit to Ramleh, and in the course of the afternoon, by dint, according to Tewfik's account to his English friends, of bakshish and a liberal distribution of orders, he managed to slip away from his guards to Alexandria in the train sent to convey him to Cairo, and there placed himself, without any more disguise, under Seymour's protection. He carried away with him, too, as all were in the same train, both Dervish and his Ministers, and so secured them as in some measure partners of his treachery. Once at Ras-el-Tin with a guard of seventy English bluejackets the whole party were practically prisoners. Dervish, five days later, having a swift steam yacht of his own, and having received peremptory orders from Constantinople, put an end to the disgrace for himself of the situation, and managed to evade the English fleet which tried to stop him. But Ragheb and his fellow Ministers, hopelessly compromised, ended by accepting the situation and remained on at Ras-el-Tin as Tewfik's servants till such time as having served their purpose as a simulacre of legal government, they had to make room for a stronger and more decidedly English administration.