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any rate they were prudently not fighting Muslims he had taken this as merely the expression of an over-exuberant national spirit and left it to the ordinary police. Lots of them though there were, there had not been enough for him to register them as a significant political presence. Up till now.
    Each community, it soon transpired, was holding a public meeting to protest against Duke Nicholas’s visit. Indeed, some of them were cooperating in holding joint meetings so things must be really serious. Since the meetings were all obligingly announced in the press, Owen assumed at first that he had little to worry about.
    ‘It’s not public meetings that lead to assassinations,’ he said to Paul, when the Consul-General registered alarm at the vehemence of some of the meetings, ‘but private ones.’
    ‘What a decent British thing to say!’ said Paul. ‘I only hope that you are right.’
    However, he took the precaution of posting observers at all the meetings, whereupon he found that
all
the meetings were plotting the Grand Duke’s assassination. He was much perturbed and started following developments very closely; until he found that the exuberance of spirit that he had detected earlier worked against agreement on specific proposals. He continued to follow developments but sat back and relaxed until one morning Nikos brought him news of yet another protest meeting scheduled for the following evening in Old Cairo.
    ‘Babylon?’ said Owen, surprised. ‘I didn’t think there were any of them there. I thought it was only Copts and Greeks.’
    ‘And a few others,’ said Nikos, who was himself a Copt and viewed all other races as interlopers.
    Babylon, as Old Cairo was confusingly known, was situated about three miles south of the modern city. It was built on the site of the old Roman fortress, very little of which now remained. The scanty ruins of the walls had been largely incorporated into the Coptic Ders. A peculiarity of the area was that many of the Coptic and Greek churches had been built within walled enclosures known as Ders. These usually contained shops and schools and houses as well as churches so that they took on the character of fortified precincts.
    It was in one of these Ders, or precincts, that the meeting was to be held. Like most public meetings in Cairo it was held in the open air, in a small square at the heart of the enclosure. When Owen arrived, the square was already comfortably filled. Most people were in ordinary Arab dress, tending towards the black and grey of the Copt rather than the blue and white or striped of the ordinary Egyptian fellahin. Owen was surprised. The Copts had survived for centuries by keeping their heads down. What now was bringing them out in protest? Surely not a Russian Grand Duke?
    As he continued to look, however, he saw that most of them were not actually Copts, but he could not make out what they were. Some of them wore crosses, so they were Christians, but their features were not those of Copts. Copts’ faces were round; these were aquiline. Some of them wore boots, too, the high-heeled boots of the Montenegrins; and some were in breeches. He wondered who they could be.
    At one end of the square was a raised platform for the speakers and now the speakers were coming out. They filed across the stage and sat down on the chairs provided. Behind them a huge banner was suddenly unfolded. It said, in great fiery letters: ‘Death to the Grand Duke!’ Which was not very promising.
    A man stood up and began to address the meeting, in Arabic. He said that the meeting had been called in order to allow people to express their views on the subject of the forthcoming visit of the Grand Duke and decide what action, if any, should be taken. He then began to call on the speakers.
    One after another they came forward and spoke of what the Russians had done. If half of what they said was true, thought Owen, they had every reason to feel bitter. God, it was terrible! Each one