leave his guests for the present more at their
ease.

But his face blackened as he entered the near
ante-chamber, where the armed captain of the
guard eagerly waited his orders. The pasha's
hands were feverishly clutching his sword-handle,
his eyes dilating, his mustachios alive to the very
tips, like a tiger's tail before it springs. These
false Mamelukes, he said, have been plotting to
seize the citadel, and overturn his power, the
moment the army leaves the city. It had even been
proposed in the Mameluke camp to seize the
pasha himself on his way to Suez. Name of
the Prophet! was this to be endured longer.
On their heads be it. There is but one God,
and Mahomet is his prophet. The captain of
the guard was instantly to close and bar the
gates of the citadel. The moment Saim Pasha
and the two generals took horse, the troops
were to fire on them and upon every Mameluke
within reach. The soldiers in the town were to
destroy all fugitives, while the Albanians on
the plain below the citadel exterminated the
residue. The fiery cross was also to be at
once sent round to all the provincial governors,
so that not one Mameluke should be left.

The three Mameluke chiefs waiting and waiting,
finding the pasha did not return, and
being, moreover, informed that he had retired
to his harem (which was an end to all further
questions, that being inviolate), began either to
be distrustful or else to think it due
etiquette to leave. Scarcely had they thrown
themselves into their saddles than a rain of fire
broke upon them from behind the ramparts.
The bullets tore through their ranks from every
side; all was confusion, dismay, and horror.
Tossing up their arms and firing vainly at the
walls, they were mowed down by hundreds. In
vain the maddened men spurred up every
passage only to find fresh death bursting on them.
Saim Pasha, some said, was taken and led
before the pasha, who upbraided him with his
treachery, and with the murder of his adopted
father, Elfi Bey. He was then haled out, and
his head struck off. Finati, however, who was
present, says that Saim gained his saddle and
dashed down, sword in hand, to the outer gate
of the citadel. It was closed inexorably, like
the rest, and he fell before it pierced with
innumerable bullets. Some of the Mamelukes,
indeed, succeeded in taking refuge in the pasha's
harem, and in the house of Toussoon; but they
were all dragged forth, conducted before the
Kiaya Bey, and beheaded on the spot. The
lifeless body of the brave Saim was exposed
to every infamy. A rope was passed round the
neck, and the bloody carcase dragged through
the various parts of the city. Mengin, who was
in Cairo at the time, assures his readers that
the streets, during two whole days, bore the
appearance of a place taken by assault. Every
kind and degree of violence was committed
under pretence of searching for the devoted
Mamelukes; and it was not until five hundred
houses had been sacked, much valuable property
destroyed, and many lives lost, that Ali and his
son rode out of the citadel to repress the
popular fury. Mohammed noted among the
slain four hundred and seventy mounted
Mamelukes, besides their attendants, who usually
served on foot. The number of victims in the
end did not fall short of a thousand. The
heads of the principal officers were embalmed
and sent as an acceptable present to the sultan.
Many victims, whose equestrian skill was now
of no avail, and who were crowded together
and encumbered with their dress of ceremony,
avoided present death by surrendering themselves.
The wicket of the citadel gate was
then opened, and they were dragged out one by
one to the court of the citadel, where they were
first stripped and then beheaded, receiving their
fate, it is said, with undaunted resolution, and
only indignant that they were deprived of the
opportunity of exercising their valour against
their executioners. Pent in like sheep in a
slaughter-house, these brave men were struck
dead one after the other. A few boys alone
were saved, because they were young and
beautiful.

One Mameluke chief alone escaped, and he
only by some providence so near a miracle that
it will never be forgotten as long as the Nile
flows through Egypt. This chief, Amim Bey,
a brother of the assassinated Elfy, had arrived
late for the procession. Saim had already
passed through the citadel gate; he therefore
took a lower place in the ranks, and probably
was to have taken the same place on the return.
Hearing the gates shut suddenly, and seeing
the firing begin, he instantly knew the treachery
that was at work, and spurred his horse up a
narrow turn to a lofty terrace close to where
the great mosque of Mohammed Ali now stands,
and a little to the north of the Roomáylee Gate.
The fire might be slacker there, or Amim might
have ridden into a corner, he knew not where.
There was a gap in the old wall: all the
repairs having been given to the bastions and
curtains facing the town. The precipice ran forty
feet down to the sandy plain below. On
one side rose the minarets of Cairo and the
domes of countless mosques, in the distance
spread the valley of the Nile and the cones
of the great pyramids. One last look, then
Amim spurred his noble horse madly at the gap,
and sprang out into the air as from a four-
pair of stairs' window. It was like leaping
from a shot-tower or from a cloud. There
is a Providence for the brave. Some genii
or peris wafted him through the air. He
floated down as if on the enchanted wooden
horse of the Arabian story. In plain words,
the long drift of rubbish from the ruined wall
broke his fall. He lifted himself, half stunned,
from his poor dead horse, and found himself
whole and sound under the precipice from
which he had leaped. An Arab (some say
Albanian officers) had, luckily for him, pitched
his black tent and picketed his horses close
to where he fell. Instantly Amim entered
and threw himself on the rites of Arab
hospitality. It was granted. The Arab protected