CHAPTER XXIV.
COUNTING CHICKENS.
In all Africa there was not a more conceited man than the Governor of Fashoda.
Defeated and driven back by the Mahdists, and ordered by Rauf Pasha to remain on the defensive, he nevertheless conceived the idea that he could win renown and perhaps become governor-general of the Soudan with the greatest ease.
As his principal adviser he had a young Englishman, who had been compelled to leave his own country surreptitiously, or spend a few years in one of the English prisons.
He managed to slip away to Egypt, and being of an adventurous disposition, Hubert Ponsonby was sent on a special mission to Rauf Pasha, who transferred him to the Governor of Fashoda.
Hubert Ponsonby, whose father was a member of the English aristocracy, was educated at Oxford University, had been in the army, but resigned his commission just in time to escape being kicked out.
But he was brilliant in every way, a good fellow, but a great rascal.
Everybody liked him in spite of his faults.
The Khedive of Egypt thought he was too brilliant. He feared that his winning ways might lure some of the court to the gaming table, for Ponsonby was a great gambler.
Hence the khedive hit upon the happy plan of sending Ponsonby to the Soudan.
Rauf Pasha saw that the young Englishman would soon run the country to suit himself, and he determined to get rid of him.
He dared not kill him; he did try to get him into a low part of Khartoum, hoping he might be robbed and murdered, but Ponsonby escaped.
The only thing he could think of was to send him with good recommendations to the Governor of Fashoda.
“If ever the fellow gets away from there, I’ll resign in his favor,” said Rauf Pasha, when Ponsonby started from Khartoum.
This was the Englishman who advised the Fashoda governor, and, in fact, really ruled the province.
Two weeks after the defeat by the Mahdi, Ponsonby was closeted with the governor.
“You see, Rauf is jealous of you,” said the Englishman, insinuatingly.
“Why should he be?”
“If you defeated this Mohammed Ahmed, you would be the greatest man in the Soudan, and I would go right off to the khedive and so work upon his feelings that you would be appointed governor-general of the Soudan. Once there you might aspire higher——”
“How?”
“The army wants a leader.”
“Well?”
“Your defeat of the Mahdi, the organization of a big Soudanese army would point to you as the man. Arabi Pasha would help you.”
“You think I might be commander of the Egyptian army?”
“Greater than that.”
“How so?”
“The army could make you khedive.”
“And you?”
“You would make me minister of war, and I would get England’s influence, and Egypt should become an independent nation, with you as its first sultan.”
The Governor of Fashoda was vain and egotistic, and believed he was the only man fitted for the career sketched out by the brilliant Englishman.
But what ambition had Ponsonby?
In the recesses of his own heart he reasoned in this fashion:
“The governor is ambitious—he is a tool in my hands—he has no scruples; he would use the assassin’s dagger just as readily as the soldier’s sword. The army wants a bold, dashing leader. Under my guidance he shall win everything until the last step—then I will, as minister of war, effect a coup d’etat, and Hubert Ponsonby shall become Sultan Hubert the First of Egypt.”
So we see, with an author’s privilege, just how the Governor of Fashoda was to be used as a cat’s-paw to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for Ponsonby’s benefit.
The whole thing was feasible if the Mahdi could be defeated and crushed.
Rauf Pasha was afraid of the growing power of the Mahdi.
Egypt itself was being converted to the belief in the claims of the Mahdi, and in the mosques of Constantinople the Mahdi was openly referred to as having made his appearance.
The conquerer of the Mahdi would therefore be all powerful.
It would have been as well if Hubert Ponsonby had remembered the old Irish story of the Skibbereen market women.
As the two women were going home from market, one of them began to prophesy how many good things she would be able to get by the next gale—rent—day.
She had two sitting of eggs to take home, and she reasoned: Twenty-six eggs will bring me at least twenty chickens; each chicken will begin laying in the spring. I shall get so many eggs every day; seven times twenty will be one hundred and forty eggs every week. I can sell them, and the money will buy——
But a stop was put to her calculation by her friend, who asked:
“But what’ll you do if the chickens are all roosters?”
The other was sure they wouldn’t be.
The women wrangled and got to high words, and at last one declared she could tell by the yolks whether the egg would produce a hen or a rooster.
Challenged to the proof, she broke all the eggs to prove her assertion; and then suddenly remembered that no chickens at all could be hatched from broken eggs.
Ponsonby should have thought of that, and have defeated the Mahdi before he counted his profits.
The Mahdi was receiving recruits daily.
Men who were fanatics; desperate fighters because they believed the triumph of the prophet was the triumph of religion.
Every day these recruits were drilled; the discipline was of the strictest, but they would have suffered torture if they thought by so doing they could assist the Mahdi.
Ponsonby had won over the chief of the Shiluk tribe to his ideas, and five thousand men were ready to take the field against the Mahdists.
“Why wait?” asked Hubert Pasha, as he was called.
“Will the Governor of the Soudan object?” asked the chief of the Shiluk.
“The Governor of Fashoda will soon be Sultan of Egypt, and you will be the governor general of the Soudan.”
And the poor barbarian was fired with ambition, and ready to fight against anybody, or any nation, as Ponsonby should direct.