With the exception of some Turks, who sneered from pride of race, the whole harem acclaimed Arâbi from his first appearance as a champion. The women viewed the question very simply. Here, on one hand, was a man who wished to free the land from foreign interference, whose cry of Egypt for the Egyptians, must mean Egypt for the Muslims, since the Copts were nobody; on the other, an infirm, if not a wicked, ruler who was letting all the privilege of El Islam be torn away. In vain their men assured them the Khedive was a good Muslim, and only deferential to the Franks from sheer expediency; that Arâbi’s faction was the work of clever rascals, and boasted not one man of solid parts. They took religious ground and would not listen. They taught their children to admire Arâbi. Muhammad, now a student in the school of war, assisted by his faithful Ali, fought five boys who dared to ridicule the peasant soldier. Though beaten many times the two did not give way, though Ali, for his own part, would have fled thrice over. But Muhammad was indomitable. Bruised and bleeding, he returned with fury to the charge, till his opponents fled in pure religious terror of such dauntless rage. A few weeks later the whole land was cringing before Arâbi’s power. And then excitements followed thick and fast. Muhammad brought his mother all the latest rumours. One day it was: