an of land in his own village, but he had no time to work it or
harvest it. Yet he had to pay a house-tax of five piastres, a war-tax
of five piastres, a camel-tax of five piastres, a palm-tax of five
piastres, a salt-tax of nine piastres, a poll-tax of thirty piastres, a
land-tax of ninety piastres. The canal for which he was taxed gave his
feddan of land no water, for the Pasha, the friend of the Government,
took all the water for his own land."

Prince Imshi stifled a yawn. "I have never seen so much at one breath,
my friend. And having seen, you feel now that Egypt must be saved--eh?"

This Pasha was an Egyptian of the Egyptians--a Turk of the Turks,
Oriental in mind with the polish of a Frenchman. He did not like
Dimsdale, but he did not say so. He knew it was better to let a man
have his fling and come a cropper over his own work than to have
him unoccupied, excited, and troublesome, especially when he was an
Englishman and knew about what he was talking. Imshi Pasha saw that
Dimsdale was a dangerous man, as all enthusiasts are, no matter how
right-headed; but it comforted him to think that many a reformer, from
Amenhotep down, had, as it were, cut his own throat in the Irrigation
Department. Some had tried to distribute water fairly, efficiently
and scientifically, but most of them had got lost in the underbush of
officialdom, and never got out of the wood again. This wood is called
Backsheesh. Reformers like Dimsdale had drawn straight lines of purpose
for the salvation of the country, and they had seen these straight lines
go crooked under their very eyes, with a devilish smoothness. Therefore
Imshi Pasha, being a wise man and a deep-dyed official who had never yet
seen the triumph of the reformer and the honest Aryan, took Dimsdale's
hands and said suddenly, with a sorrowful break in his voice:

"Behold, my friend, to tell the whole truth as God gives it, it is time
you have come. Egypt has waited for you--the man who sees and knows. I
have watched you for two years. I have waited, but now the time is ripe.
You shall stretch your arm over Egypt and it will rise to you. You shall
have paper for plans, and men and money for travel and works-cuttings,
and pumps, and sand-bags for banks and barrages. You shall be second
in your department--but first in fact, for shall not I, your friend, be
your chief? And you shall say 'Go there,' and they shall go, and 'Come
here,' and they shall come. For my soul is with you f