The British Occupation 109
He was sent for by the Khedive, and accompanied
Tewfik into the hollow square of the insurgent regi-
ments. His report of the leading part he played brought
him much kudos ; but he knew no Arabic and the talking
was done by Cookson, the British Consul. Colvin did,
however, do his best to induce the Khedive to arrest
or even shoot Arabi. His version suggests that the
Khedive showed cowardice, though to us it seems more
like common sense. Colvin reports: "I said to the
Viceroy, ' Now is your moment.5 He replied : ' We are
between four fires/ I said, ' Have courage/ He said,
'We shall all be killed/ " This represents the Khedive
and the crisis as seen by a "boy of the bulldog breed/3
But Arabi gives a picture that seems more true to life
in his account: '' If the Khedive had shot me the guns
would have fired on him, and there would have been
bad work. But he was quite well pleased with what
passed/7 And it seems quite possible that the whole
programme was prearranged—that the Khedive, having
realised the strength of army nationalism, had, for the
time, gone over to it, and had only brought Colvin to
bear witness that he was under force majeure. Indeed,
when we read that the troops which were to have
ambushed the mutineers from the Palace windows were
those same guards under Ali Fehmy that had rescued
the Colonels from Osman Rifky, we must suspect that
the Khedive was in the plot. The account given by
Arabi, who was truthful, suggests throughout a con-
certed comedy, played with a ruler capable of turning
it into a Wat Tyler tragedy. He writes : sc We knew
that the Khedive was with us. He wished to rid him-
self of Riaz. . . . His contact with us was through Ali
Fehmy, who had brought us this message from him :
'You three are soldiers, with me you make four/''