The blood rushed to the face of John Grayson. "I am afraid," he said, "you have no cause to be grateful to _us_." The pastor waved his hand. "I say nothing against the English," he said.--"Pardon me a moment." He rose, looked carefully round, and opened both doors of the study, ascertaining in this way that there was no one within earshot, either in the churchyard or the church. Then he closed the doors again, sat down, lowered his voice, and began: "Have you been long enough in this country, Mr. Grayson, to have seen a dead horse, with half a dozen hungry dogs snarling round it? Each wants a bit, yet each is so jealous of all the rest, that if one dares touch it the others fall on him, and drive him off. Can you read my parable?" "Yes; the nations, England and the others, stand thus around Turkey. Would it _were_ dead, Pastor!" "Take care, my young friend, lest some such word escape you as you walk by the way, or ride among the vineyards, or sit with a friend over your coffee in his private room, where the very hangings may conceal a spy." "Oh, I am cautious enough. I have been here nearly five years." "Were you here fifty, you might still have failed to learn your lesson. A word, a whisper, a scrap of paper found upon you,--nay, the assertion of some one else that you have given him a scrap of paper--may consign you any moment to a horrible dungeon, where you will be tortured into saying anything your accusers wish. Nor is that the worst. Men have been flung into prison, and tortured almost to death, without being able to guess the crime laid to their charge. I knew of one who was used in this way, and at last they found they had mistaken him for another of the same name. He was brought half dead before the Kadi, who said to him coolly, 'My son, regard it not. It was an error. Go in peace.'" "The stupidity of these people would be ridiculous, if the horror were not too great," Jack said. "Nay, Mr. Grayson, it is not stupidity. It is savagery, and savagery dominating civilization, but that savagery is armed with an ingenuity almost devilish for the bringing about of the designs in view. All _special_ outrages upon the Christians are cleverly timed for some moment when the eyes of Christian Europe are turned elsewhere. Our people are first entrapped, made to give up their arms if they have any, cajoled with false promises of safety, if possible induced or forced to accuse each other, or themselves, of seditious plans they never even thought of." "Then, Pastor, are all the rumours of plots and seditions here and there mere fabrications?"