*CHAPTER I*
The Consul-General had taken a firm grasp of affairs. Every morning his
Advisers and Under-Secretaries visited him, and it seemed as if they
could not come too often or say too much. He who rules the machine of
State becomes himself a machine, and it looked as if Lord Nuneham were
ceasing to be a man.
Within a week after the day on which he received Helena's letter, he was
sitting in his bleak library walled with Blue-Books, with the Minister
of the Interior and the Adviser to the same department. The Minister
was the sallow-faced Egyptian Pasha whom he had made Regent on the
departure of the Khedive; the Adviser was a tall, young Englishman with
bright red hair on which the red tarboosh sat strangely. They were
discussing the "special weapon" which had been designed to meet special
needs. The Consul-General's part of the discussion was to expound, the
Adviser's was to applaud, the Minister's was to acquiesce.
The special weapon was a decree. It was to be known as the Law of
Public Security, and it was intended to empower the authorities to
establish a Special Tribunal to deal with all crimes, offences, and
conspiracies committed or conceived by natives against the State. The
Tribunal was to be set up at any time and at any place on the request of
the Agent and Consul-General of Great Britain; its sentences, which were
to be pronounced forthwith, were not to be subject to appeal; and it was
to inflict such penalties as it might consider necessary, including the
death penalty, without being bound by the provisions of the penal code.
"Drastic!" said the Pasha, with a sinister smile.
"Necessary," said the Consul-General, with a frown.
The Pasha became silent again while the virtual ruler of Egypt went on
to say that the state of the country demanded that the Government should
be armed with special powers to meet widespread fanaticism and secret
conspiracy.
"No one deplores more than I do," he said, "that the existing law of the
land is not sufficient to deal with the new perils by which we are
threatened, but it is not, and therefore we must make it stronger."
"Certainly, my lord," said the red-headed figure in the fez, and again
the sinister face of the Pasha smiled.
"And now tell me, Pasha," said the Consul-General, "how long a time will
it take to pass this law through the Legislative Council and the Council
of Ministers?"