“But what answer shall I give them?” asked the Pasha. “You had better hear it from the officers yourself. Come, without saying a word to them. I will call them here and ask them in your presence, because they are involved in the question as much as I am myself.” “Very well,” he replied. [Sidenote: 1889. March 26. Kavalli’s.] A messenger was sent to summon the officers, Stairs, Nelson, Jephson, and Parke, and when they were seated I addressed them:-- “Gentlemen,--Before giving me the benefit of your advice at this important period, let me sum up some facts as they have transpired. “Emin Pasha has received a mail from Wadelai. Selim Bey, who left the post below here on the 26th February last, with a promise that he would hurry up such people as wished to go to Egypt, writes from Wadelai that the steamers are engaged in transporting some people from Dufflé to Wadelai, that the work of transport between Wadelai and Tunguru will be resumed upon the accomplishment of the other task. When he went away from here, we were informed that he was deposed, and that Emin Pasha and he were sentenced to death by the rebel officers. We now learn that the rebel officers, ten in number, and all their faction, are desirous of proceeding to Egypt; we may suppose, therefore, that Selim Bey’s party is in the ascendant again. “Shukri Agha, the chief of the Mswa Station--the station nearest to us--paid us a visit there in the middle of March. He was informed on the 16th of March, the day that he departed, that our departure for Zanzibar would positively begin on the 10th of April. He took with him urgent letters for Selim Bey, announcing that fact in unmistakable terms. “Eight days later we hear that Shukri Agha is still at Mswa, having only sent a few women and children to the Nyanza Camp; yet he and his people might have been here by this if they intended to accompany us. “Thirty days ago Selim Bey left us with a promise of a reasonable time. The Pasha thought once that twenty days would be a reasonable time. However, we have extended it to forty-four days. Judging by the length of time Selim Bey has already taken, only reaching Tunguru with one-sixteenth of the expected force, I personally am quite prepared to give the Pasha my decision. For you must know, gentlemen, that the Pasha having heard from Selim Bey ‘intelligence so encouraging,’ wishes to know my decision, but I have preferred to call you to answer for me.