red her
attack with delicate violence. Did Dicky know him? Why did not he, in
favour with Ismail, and with great influence, stop this dreadful and
humiliating business? It was a disgrace to the English name. How could
we preach freedom and a higher civilisation to the Egyptians while an
Englishman enriched himself and ruled a province by slavery? Dicky's
invariable reply was that we couldn't, and that things weren't moving
very much towards a higher civilisation in Egypt. But he asked her if
she ever heard of a slave running away from Kingsley Bey, or had she
ever heard of a case of cruelty on his part? Her reply was that he
had given slaves the kourbash, and had even shot them. Dicky thereupon
suggested that Kingsley Bey was a government, and that the kourbash was
not yet abolished in the English navy, for instance; also that men had
to be shot sometimes.

At last she had made a direct appeal to Kingsley Bey. She sent an
embassy to him--Dicky prevented her from going herself; he said he would
have her deported straightway, if she attempted it. She was not in such
deadly earnest that she did not know he would keep his word, and that
the Consulate could not help her would have no time to do so. So, she
confined herself to an elaborate letter, written in admirable English
and inspired by most noble sentiments. The beauty that was in her face
was in her letter in even a greater degree. It was very adroit, too,
very ably argued, and the moral appeal was delicate and touching, put
with an eloquence at once direct and arresting. The invocation with
which the letter ended was, as Kingsley Bey afterwards put it, "a pitch
of poetry and humanity never reached except by a Wagner opera."

Kingsley Bey's response to the appeal was a letter to the lady, brought
by a sarraf, a mamour and six slaves, beautifully mounted and armed,
saying that he had been deeply moved by her appeal, and as a proof of
the effect of her letter, she might free the six slaves of his embassy.
This she straightway did joyfully, and when they said they wished to go
to Cairo, she saw them and their horses off on the boat with gladness,
and she shook them each by the hand and prayed Heaven in their language
to give them long plumes of life and happiness. Arrived at Cairo these
freemen of Assiout did as they had been ordered by Kingsley--found
Donovan Pasha, delivered a certain letter to him, and then proceeded,
also as they had been ordered, to a certain place