‘But everything depends upon it,’ said Barizy. ‘If he was killed accidentally, there will be negotiations, but the business will be compromised; the English want Cyprus, and they will take it as compensation. If it is an affair of malice prepense, there will be war, for the laws of England require war if blood royal be spilt.’ The Consul Pasqualigo looked very grave; then, withdrawing his lips for a moment from his amber mouthpiece, he observed, ‘It is a crisis.’ ‘It will be a crisis,’ said Barizy of the Tower, excited by finding his rival a listener, ‘but not for a long time. The crisis has not commenced. The first question is: to whom does the desert belong; to the Porte, or to the Viceroy?’ ‘It depends upon what part of the desert is in question,’ said Pasqualigo. ‘Of course the part where it took place. I say the Arabian desert belongs to the Viceroy; my cousin, Barizy of the Gate, says “No, it belongs to the Porte.” Raphael Tafna says it belongs to neither. The Bedouins are independent.’ ‘But they are not recognised,’ said the Consul Pasqualigo. ‘Without a diplomatic existence, they are nullities. England will hold all the recognise powers in the vicinity responsible. You will see! The murder of an English prince, under such circumstances too, will not pass unavenged. The whole of the Turkish garrison of the city will march out directly into the desert.’ ‘The Arabs care shroff for your Turkish garrison of the city,’ said Barizy, with great derision. ‘They are eight hundred strong,’ said Pasqualigo. ‘Eight hundred weak, you mean. No, as Raphael Tafna was saying, when Mehemet. Ali was master, the tribes were quiet enough. But the Turks could never manage the Arabs, even in their best days. If the Pasha of Damascus were to go himself, the Bedouins would unveil his harem while he was smoking his nargileh.’ ‘Then England will call upon the Egyptians,’ said the Consul. ‘Hah!’ said Barizy of the Tower, ‘have I got you at last? Now comes your crisis, I grant you. The English will send a ship of war with a protocol, and one of their lords who is a sailor: that is the way. They will call upon the pasha to exterminate the tribe who have murdered the brother of their queen; the pasha will reply, that when he was in Syria the brothers of queens were never murdered, and put the protocol in his turban. This will never satisfy Palmerston; he will order----’ ‘Palmerston has nothing to do with it,’ screamed out Pasqualigo; ‘he is no longer Reis Effendi; he is in exile; he is governor of the Isle of Wight.’