“If you defeated this Mohammed Ahmed, you would be the greatest man in the Soudan, and I would go right off to the khedive and so work upon his feelings that you would be appointed governor-general of the Soudan. Once there you might aspire higher----” “How?” “The army wants a leader.” “Well?” “Your defeat of the Mahdi, the organization of a big Soudanese army would point to you as the man. Arabi Pasha would help you.” “You think I might be commander of the Egyptian army?” “Greater than that.” “How so?” “The army could make you khedive.” “And you?” “You would make me minister of war, and I would get England’s influence, and Egypt should become an independent nation, with you as its first sultan.” The Governor of Fashoda was vain and egotistic, and believed he was the only man fitted for the career sketched out by the brilliant Englishman. But what ambition had Ponsonby? In the recesses of his own heart he reasoned in this fashion: “The governor is ambitious--he is a tool in my hands--he has no scruples; he would use the assassin’s dagger just as readily as the soldier’s sword. The army wants a bold, dashing leader. Under my guidance he shall win everything until the last step--then I will, as minister of war, effect a _coup d’etat_, and Hubert Ponsonby shall become Sultan Hubert the First of Egypt.” So we see, with an author’s privilege, just how the Governor of Fashoda was to be used as a cat’s-paw to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for Ponsonby’s benefit. The whole thing was feasible if the Mahdi could be defeated and crushed. Rauf Pasha was afraid of the growing power of the Mahdi. Egypt itself was being converted to the belief in the claims of the Mahdi, and in the mosques of Constantinople the Mahdi was openly referred to as having made his appearance. The conquerer of the Mahdi would therefore be all powerful. It would have been as well if Hubert Ponsonby had remembered the old Irish story of the Skibbereen market women. As the two women were going home from market, one of them began to prophesy how many good things she would be able to get by the next gale--rent--day. She had two sitting of eggs to take home, and she reasoned: Twenty-six eggs will bring me at least twenty chickens; each chicken will begin laying in the spring. I shall get so many eggs every day; seven times twenty will be one hundred and forty eggs every week. I can sell them, and the money will buy---- But a stop was put to her calculation by her friend, who asked: “But what’ll you do if the chickens are all roosters?” The other was sure they wouldn’t be. The women wrangled and got to high words, and at last one declared she could tell by the yolks whether the egg would produce a hen or a rooster. Challenged to the proof, she broke all the eggs to prove her assertion; and then suddenly remembered that no chickens at all could be hatched from broken eggs.