Note 92 — HASSAN OR THE CHILD OF THE PYRAMID (continued 4)

It would be unwarrantable to introduce, even in a work of fiction, such a charge against the memory of a man who, with all his faults, was certainly a great and sagacious Prince, had it not some foundation in truth. But it was stated to the author by Abbas Pasha himself that he fully believed that his father had been poisoned by Mohammed Ali’s order. The author asked him whether there was any circumstantial evidence to corroborate this suspicion. “Yes,” he replied. “The news of his death was conveyed from Lower Egypt to Mohammed Ali’s confidential household officer by a swift courier. The officer, ignorant of his master’s views, and afraid of the effect which might be produced on him by the sudden announcement of his son’s death, proceeded to break the intelligence to him with caution, saying, ‘My lord, news is arrived of Toussoun Pasha.’ ‘When—how did he die?’ was the answer. How,” continued Abbas Pasha, “could he have known or guessed that a man in the prime of life had suddenly died unless he had himself decreed it?” There was certainly force in the argument; but as all substantial evidence is wanting, we must be satisfied with the universal Arabic conclusion on such matters—“Allah knows.” Another reflection naturally arises from this tragedy—namely, that when we remember the energy and severity of Mohammed Ali’s character, it seems incredible that if a favourite son, and one of the bravest commanders in his army, had been suddenly carried off by poison in the prime of life without any order or connivance of his own, no open and diligent examination of the officers of the Prince’s household should have been made, and no medical inquiry as to the causes of death have been instituted. Such domestic tragedies are so common in the East that they create but little sensation on the spot. The fate of the son resembled that of the father. There is little doubt but that Abbas Pasha, the late Viceroy, was strangled in his bed by two Mamelukes who had lately entered his service, highly recommended by certain persons in Constantinople. They had stolen money from his harem, and he had threatened them with punishment. They were the only two on duty close to his bedroom on the night of his sudden death. They disappeared immediately after it, yet no real search was made for them; no public or satisfactory medical examination of the body was allowed; it was buried in unseemly haste, and with nothing of viceregal pomp. Crowds of sycophants flocked to the divan of the successor, and a very short time afterwards the author was informed that one of the supposed murderers had become an officer in the Egyptian army!