His conduct under the standard soon
attracted the attention of Kussouf, the governor
of Cairo, who appointed the young Epirote to
the command of a division of the army, under
Youssof Bey. The pay of the Albanian troops
was in arrears, which caused their disaffection,
and Mohammed refused obedience to
the governor unless this wrong was redressed.
The governor sent orders that he should
appear before him that night; but Ali, not
unacquainted with the object and usual termination
of such private interviews, returned for
answer that he would show himself only in
broad daylight, and in the midst of his
soldiers. Perceiving the danger with which he
was threatened, Kussouf then admitted into
Cairo the Albanian guards under Taher Pasha,
hoping that the intrigues of the one chief would
counteract those of the other. But in this
expectation he was grievously disappointed;
for the mountaineers, in whatever points they
might differ, now became unanimous in the
one point of demanding their pay, and in all
the measures which were suggested for
compelling Kussouf to advance it. They attacked
the palace, reduced the citadel, drove Kussouf
and his household from the city, and finally
the vice-regal power was deposited in the hands
of the Pasha Taher.

The tyrannical measures of this new ruler,
however, brought his reign to a close at the
end of twenty-two days, and the actual government
of the country reverted to the hands
of the Mamelukes, under the aged Ibrahim,
Osmann, Bardissy, and Mohammed Ali. The
Porte, indeed, sent a pasha of high rank to
assume the direction of affairs at Cairo; but
the beys having once more the upper hand,
seized the viceroy soon after landing, and put
him to death. The undisputed ascendancy of
the Mamelukes might, in the end, have proved
fatal to Mohammed Ali; who did not belong to
that body. For this reason he contrived to
embroil Bardissy, who has been called the
Hotspur of the beys, with some of his associates,
and finally, attacking him with his own hand,
drove him from the capital, and reinstated the
exiled pasha, whom he intended to use merely
as a tool for his own purposes. The Grand
Signior, suspecting his ambitious views, issued
orders, in the year 1804, that the Albanians
should retire into their own country, intending,
it may be presumed, to garrison the Egyptian
fortresses with troops less disposed to
insubordination. Mohammed, however, was proclaimed
basha by the shouting soldiers. The Porte was
weak in Egypt; the Mamelukes had the power
of the old prætorian guards — they could raise,
and they could depose. It was "a far cry" to
Constantinople. A strong hand had seized the
sceptre at last, and turned it into a battle-
mace to brain his opponents. Goldsmith once
said that Burke winded into an argument like
a serpent: like that subtle reptile, Mohammed
had twisted towards the throne, alternately
crouching and threatening. It was his at last—
all that fair land: the vast river reaching from
far in Africa to the Mediterranean: its rocks,
its deserts, its towns, its broad green acres of
millet and sugar-cane, its pyramids and temples.

Kourschid Pasha was endeavouring to rouse
the Mamelukes against his rival, when the
capitan pasha suddenly arrived at Alexandria,
and sent Kourschid orders to instantly give up
the citadel to Mohammed and return himself to
head-quarters. The Mamelukes were, however,
determined to strike another blow at the Albanian.
The new pasha wished nothing better.
He turned the city into one vast pitfall, and
lay crouching behind the rock-walls of the
citadel. Every flat roof, every fountain-court,
was an ambuscade. Mohammed suggested to the
sheiks, on whom he had the greatest reliance,
to encourage the beys in their meditated assault,
and even to promise them assistance should
they resolve to enter the city. The Mamelukes,
reposing implicit faith in their pretended friends,
seized the first opportunity of bursting in at
one of the gates which had been opened for the
purpose of admitting some countrymen with
their camels. Dividing their number into two
parties, they advanced along the streets sounding
their martial instruments, and anticipating
a complete triumph. But they soon discovered
their mistake; for, being attacked by the
inhabitants on all sides, driven from post to post,
and slaughtered without mercy, they sustained
so severe a loss as from that moment to cease
to be formidable. At the mosque gates, at the
fountain foot, in the bazaars, in the squares,
everywhere the Mamelukes were struck down,
shot, or had the life cut or beaten out of them.
All the prisoners were massacred, and eighty-
three shaven heads sent to festoon the gory
walls of the imperial seraglio on the shores of
the Bosphorus.

The Turks now began again their usual mean
and cowardly policy. They had used Mohammed
against the Mamelukes, now they would
support the beys against Mohammed. They sent a
capitan pasha to Alexandria with instructions
to assist Elfy, well known by his residence in
England, in his endeavours to assume the vice-
regal mantle, and thereby to depress the rising
power of Mohammed. This envoy, upon his
arrival, sent a capidji bashi to Cairo, summoning
Ali to appear immediately at that port,
where his master was ready to bestow upon
him the government of Salonica.

The old bird was not caught with chaff. He
was not to be lured by the shaking of a coloured
ribbon. Mohammed knew that behind the firman
for the pashalick of Salonica a bowstring was
twisted. He told his friends he should be a
fool and coward indeed, after winning the pasha's
turban with only five hundred men, to surrender
now, when he had fifteen hundred resolute men
by his side.

"Cairo is to be publicly sold!" he exclaimed.
"Whoever will give most blows of the sabre
will win it and remain its master."

His demeanour towards the pasha was, at the
same time, submissive and dutiful; he artfully
regretted that the mutinous state of the army