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Updated: June 24, 2025
But these were the glories of a later age; the new colony was shaken by the successive defeats of Akbah and Zuheir, and the western expeditions were again interrupted by the civil discord of the Arabian monarchy. The son of the valiant Zobeir maintained a war of twelve years, a siege of seven months against the house of Ommiyah.
But such considerations were utterly obliterated by that one moment of electric impact of personal vision; henceforward ,there was a rooted conviction in Gordon's mind that Zobeir was to be trusted, that Zobeir must join him at Khartoum, that Zobeir's presence would paralyse the Mahdi, that Zobeir must succeed him in the government of the country after the evacuation.
Perhaps he calculated that the public announcement of his wishes would oblige the Government to yield to them; if so, he was completely mistaken, for the result was the very reverse. The country, already startled by the proclamation in favour of slavery, could not swallow Zobeir.
As for the government which was to replace him, there were several alternatives: an Egyptian Pasha might succeed him as Governor-General, or Zobeir might be appointed after all, or the whole country might be handed over to the Sultan. His fertile imagination evolved scheme after scheme; and his visions of his own future were equally various.
Here might be seen a cluster of Zobeir Arabs, meditating rapine: and there a straggling Jew, ruminating on the losses he had sustained by the flight of the panic-stricken slaves of his usury. Aga Pharseigh had lost all his confidence and self-sufficiency.
Zobeir ran the prefect through with a lance; of the rest not a single man escaped. The Saracens cut off all their heads, then flayed them, and so carried them upon the points of their lances, presenting a most horrible spectacle to all that part of the country, till they came to the army, which received fresh courage by the accession of this reinforcement, consisting of eight thousand men.
The præfect himself was slain by the hand of Zobeir: his daughter, who sought revenge and death, was surrounded and made prisoner; and the fugitives involved in their disaster the town of Sufetula, to which they escaped from the sabres and lances of the Arabs.
To the courage and discretion of Zobeir the lieutenant of the caliph intrusted the execution of his own stratagem, which inclined the long-disputed balance in favor of the Saracens.
if one is a father'; it was true that, only a few days previously, on his way to Egypt, Gordon himself had been so convinced of the dangerous character of Zobeir that he had recommended by telegram his removal to Cyprus.
In his absence, a rebellion had broken out in Darfur one of the vast outlying provinces of his government where a native chieftain, Zobeir, had erected, on a basis of slave-traffic, a dangerous military power. Zobeir himself had been lured to Cairo, where he was detained in a state of semi-captivity; but his son, Suleiman, ruled in his stead, and was now defying the Governor- General.
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