“Then we should be able to agree without difficulty,” he answered with a grim smile. “But,” he added, as his keen face took on a stern expression and his eyes looked through mine into my brain, “whether or not we do reach an agreement, we can rely on you to keep our secret and to drop no hint or word through which it might be revealed?” “Absolutely,” I replied, and my gaze was as steady as his. He studied me intently for a full minute and then said decisively, in the Arabic fashion: “It is good.” Without further ceremony he let me into the whole plot. At the bottom of it was the old cry of “Egypt for the Egyptians,” which is not yet dead and probably will not die for centuries, if ever. It was Arabi Pasha who made the last desperate fight under this slogan and it was his release from exile that was sought by the plotters, in order that he might renew the war for native liberty. As a military genius Arabi ranked almost with the great Ibrahim Pasha, who died a few years after Arabi was born, and he was fanatical in his love of country. From a Colonel in the army he became Under Secretary of War and then Minister of War, in which position he was practically the Dictator of Egypt. With the aid of a secret society which he organized among the native officers of the army, and the carefully concealed support of the Sultan, who had protested vainly against the assumption of authority by the British and French over this part of Turkish territory, he planned and executed a revolt through which it was hoped to restore native control of Egypt. The French, more sentimental than selfish, and reluctant to take extreme measures, withdrew at the last moment, leaving it to the British to prosecute the war, which they did with characteristic vigor. The bombardment of Alexandria, on July 11 and 12, 1882, and the rout of his army at Tel-el-Kebir two months later, dissipated Arabi’s dream and, so far as surface indications were concerned, established British rule in Egypt, exclusively and permanently. The movement which Arabi had fostered apparently collapsed with that battle, and he was exiled to Ceylon for life.