The whole of the Turkish garrison of the city will march out
directly into the desert.'
'The Arabs care shroff for your Turkish garrison of the city,' said
Barizy, with great derision.
'They are eight hundred strong,' said Pasqualigo.
'Eight hundred weak, you mean. No, as Raphael Tafna was saying, when
Mehemet. Ali was master, the tribes were quiet enough. But the Turks
could never manage the Arabs, even in their best days. If the Pasha of
Damascus were to go himself, the Bedouins would unveil his harem while
he was smoking his nargileh.'
'Then England will call upon the Egyptians,' said the Consul.
'Hah!' said Barizy of the Tower, 'have I got you at last? Now comes
your crisis, I grant you. The English will send a ship of war with a
protocol, and one of their lords who is a sailor: that is the way. They
will call upon the pasha to exterminate the tribe who have murdered the
brother of their queen; the pasha will reply, that when he was in Syria
the brothers of queens were never murdered, and put the protocol in his
turban. This will never satisfy Palmerston; he will order----'
'Palmerston has nothing to do with it,' screamed out Pasqualigo; 'he is
no longer Reis Effendi; he is in exile; he is governor of the Isle of
Wight.
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