So much for Ismail Pasha. When, by order of the Sultan, he was superseded by Tewfik, Arabi made haste to do obeisance to the new Khedive, who made him a full colonel. But when Tewfik reduced the army, the Three Colonels presented a petition to the Khedive, demanding, among other matters, that an Egyptian should be made Minister of War in place of Osman Rifki. The Three Colonels were thereupon arrested. Mahmoud Sami Pasha, a member of the Cabinet, secretly arranged that when they were brought before the Court-martial, the soldiers should rescue them. On the 1st February, 1881, accordingly, the soldiers burst into the court, turned it inside out, and carried the Three Colonels to the Palace. The Khedive, confronted with physical force to which he had nothing to oppose, consented to supersede his War Minister in favour of the crafty Mahmoud Sami, to increase the army by 18,000 men, and to abolish favouritism. The Khedive very soon discovered that Mahmoud Sami {172} was by no means a desirable Minister of War, and also that the Three Colonels and their friends continued to stir up trouble. He therefore dismissed Mahmoud Sami and appointed in his stead the Khedive's brother-in-law, Daoud Pasha, a Circassian, and ordered the disaffected regiments to leave Cairo. At the same time it was rumoured that the Khedive had obtained a secret decree from the Sultan condemning Arabi and his friends to death. When the order to remove his regiment from Cairo was received by Arabi, that leader of revolt informed the Minister of War on 9th September, 1881, that the troops in Cairo would proceed the same afternoon to the Palace of Abdin, there to demand of the Khedive the dismissal of the Ministry, the convocation of the National Assembly, and the increase of the army. Then came Tewfik's opportunity, which, as already observed, he let slip. When the Khedive entered the Square, accompanied by Mr. Colvin, British Controller, and a few native and European officers, he was confronted with some 4000 soldiers and thirty guns. The following account of the critical moment is given by the Hon. Charles Royle, in his excellent history of _The Egyptian Campaigns_ (London, 1900). "The Khedive advanced firmly towards a little group of officers and men (some of whom were mounted) in the centre. Colvin said to him, 'When Arabi presents himself, tell him to give up his sword and follow you. Then go the round of the regiments, address each separately, and give them the "order to disperse."' The soldiers all this time were standing in easy attitudes, chatting, laughing, rolling up cigarettes, and eating pistachio nuts, looking, in fact, as little like desperate mutineers as could well be imagined. They apparently were there in obedience only to orders, and, without being either loyal or disloyal, might almost be regarded as disinterested spectators.