considerable promises, which after the war remained unfulfilled, and very likely the £10,000 more than covered the sums Sultan actually disbursed. Be this as it may, there is no question that with the Khedive's help Wolseley's path of victory was made a very easy one.4
In spite, however, of all these disadvantages of internal intrigue, the National defence might still have been prolonged, if the end could not be averted, but for the bad luck which from this point throughout attended the army. As soon as it was quite clear that Egypt would be attacked from the East, Mahmud Fehmi, the engineer, the ablest of all Arabi's lieutenants, was despatched to Tel-el-Kebir, to carry out and finish the lines there, which had never been more than lightly traced. Had they been finished as they ought to have been, they should have proved a formidable obstacle to the advance of the English army, but by an extraordinary fatality, which was hardly within the range of the common hazards of war, the General, within a few days of his arrival, was captured and made prisoner by a small party of English Life Guards, who, far in advance of the English position, happened to be passing near. The accident was a strange one. Mahmud Fehmi, attended only by an A. D. C., and having put off his uniform on account of the heat, had passed one evening to the other side of the Wady Tumeylat, and partly to get a breath of air, partly, too, for a better view of the desert in the direction of Ismaïlia, had climbed alone, on foot, a low sandhill, of which there are several, running into the cultivated land, when suddenly the small English party pounced on him. As Mahmud was not in uniform, Colonel Talbot, in command of the party, was doubtful how to treat him, and was near accepting his explanation that he was an Effendi with property in the neighbourhood, but finally decided to carry him off with them, which they accordingly did, the A. D. C., having remained in a village hard by not knowing what had happened, nor had Talbot any notion of the value of his capture until some time after the return of the party to the English headquarters. As a matter of fact, however, it was one of the greatest possible importance, and a blow to the defence of Tel-el-Kebir for which there was no remedy.5