One of the earliest orders on reaching Cairo had been to keep a watch on the mosque criers. It is the duty of these criers to call the faithful to prayer three times a day. For some time their cries were noted, but by degrees our people grew used to them, and neglected to notice what they said. Seeing this, the _Muezzins_ substituted appeals to revolt in place of their sacred formulas; and the French were too ignorant of the language to perceive the difference. This left the Turks every opportunity to conspire and to give orders for delaying or advancing the hour fixed for their insurrection. It was finally fixed to begin on the morning of the 21st October. On the 21st October at eight o'clock, then, the revolt broke out simultaneously at every point from Syène as far as Alexandria. My father was still ill and in bed when Dermoncourt rushed in, crying: "General, the town is in full insurrection. General Dupuis has just been assassinated! To horse, to horse!" My father did not wait a second bidding, he was too well aware of the value of every moment at such a crisis! He leapt half clad on his horse, not even waiting to saddle it, seized his sword, and rushed into the streets of Cairo at the head of several officers who had followed him. The news was but too true. General Dupuis, the commander of Cairo, had been mortally wounded under the armpit by a lance-thrust, which had severed the main artery. A Turk who had concealed himself in a cellar had struck the blow. Bonaparte, it was rumoured, was on the isle of Rondah, and could not obtain entrance to the town. General Caffarelli's house had been taken by storm, and all inside put to death. The insurgents in a body were making for the quarters of Paymaster-General Estève. My father urged his horse in that direction, collecting round him all the French he met on his way, amounting in all to about sixty men. We know what admiration my father's herculean figure had raised among the Arabs. Mounted on a heavy dragoon horse, which he handled with consummate horsemanship, his head, breast, and arms bare to every blow, he hurled himself into the thickest of the fray with that utter fearlessness of death which always characterised him, this time intensified by the fit of melancholy that preyed on him. He appeared to the Arabs as the Destroying Angel of the flaming sword. In an instant the approaches to the Treasury were cleared, Estève saved and the Turks and Arabs cut to pieces. Poor Estève! I remember that when I was quite a child he kissed me and said, "Remember what I tell you: if it had not been for your father, this head of mine would be lying to-day in the gutters of Cairo."