Two little girls stood hand in hand, gaping up at me. A street hawker glanced in my direction. Except for these, no passer-by appeared to notice us. I dropped in a heap on the pavement. Next moment Robin landed beside me. We were free once more, this time not to be recaught. * * * * * The two little girls clapped their hands with glee when they saw us drop. As to the street hawker, I daresay he thought we were robbers, and as such, people not to be interfered with. The other passers-by merely edged away from us. No one, in Constantinople, will involve himself in any civil commotion if he can avoid it. Whether the disturbance be a fire or theft, the procedure is the same. If your neighbour is being robbed, you look the other way. If your house is being burnt, you bribe the fire brigade not to come near it, for it they do, they will assuredly loot everything that the flames do not consume. Hence the sight of two wild men dropping into a crowded street stirred no civic conscience. No one asked who we were. We crossed the tramway lines unmolested, and dived into a narrow street leading down the hill. Then we ran and ran and ran. That our escape would be instantly reported we did not doubt. That Galata Bridge would be watched and all our old haunts also seemed certain. The care with which we had been guarded showed that the Turks set a value on keeping us out of harm's way. At large in the city we would be factors of unrest. Avoiding main streets, we toiled on and on, through dark by-ways where the moonlight did not come, until we reached the old bridge across the Golden Horn. Here we decided to separate for the time, so that if one of us was caught by the toll-keepers, the other could still make good his escape. But the toll-keepers took their tribute of a stamp without demur. They knew nothing of British prisoners. Crossing, we turned right-handed, passing behind the American Ambassador's yacht _Scorpion_, at her berth near the Turkish Admiralty, and then went up into the European quarter. In Pera we knew a score of houses, between us, that would be glad to give us lodging, and it only remained to choose the most convenient. * * * * * It is late at night, some days before the Armistice. I am in the gardens of the British Embassy, with a certain Colonel, an escaped prisoner of war like myself, who is in close touch with the political situation. We had come here, in disguise, to be out of the turmoil of the town. Outside, in the unquiet streets, men talk of revolution. Gangs of soldiers are under arms for twenty-four hours at a stretch. Machine guns are posted everywhere. The docks are an armed camp. Detectives and informers, the prison and the press-gang are at their old work. All is still dark in Constantinople; but we, fugitives at present, and meeting by stealth, speak of the day so soon to come when the barren flagstaff on the roof of the Embassy will carry the Union Jack.