Below us, as we walk on the terrace, lies the Golden Horn, silver in the starlight, and across its waters the city of Stamboul stands dim, forlorn, and lovely. The slip of moon that rides over San Sofia seems symbol of the waning of misery and intolerance. Soon that sickle will disappear, and when the moon of the Moslems rises again and looks through the garden where we talk, she will see all round it a happier city. . . . Let us hope so, anyway. * * * * * Of the maze of plot and counterplot in the city, of the death-throes of the old regime, and of our own small part in the history of that time, this record of moods and misadventures is not the place to write. My life as a prisoner was finished: my brief career as a minor diplomat, keeping his finger on the feverish pulse of Turkish politics, had only just begun, and the story of those crowded weeks would fill a volume. Up to the last moment, the Government, in the person of Taalat Pasha, hoped to hold the real, if not the ostensible, reins of power. Until the flight of the Union and Progress triumvirate, the average Turk affected a certain lightheartedness about his country's losses. True, huge territories were lost to the Ottoman revenue, but on the other hand they had gained the Caucasus. So long as there was taxable territory, what did it matter whence the tribute came? One night, when my newspaper work permitted, I visited a friend of Taalat Pasha, without disclosing my identity. "Nobody but Taalat can possibly manage Turkey," he told me--"and the English, if they come, will be well advised to deal with him." "It is not the English only," I suggested modestly, "but the whole world-set-free, that is coming to Constantinople." "Then the world must deal with Taalat. His party has all the money, and all the brains and energy as well." "Everything except imagination," I replied. But I did not myself imagine that only thirty-six hours later Taalat, the fat telegraphist whom Fate caught in her toils, and Enver, with his peacock-grace and peacock-wits, and Djemal, with cruelty stamped on him like the brand of Cain, would pass disguised, and in darkness, and in fear of death, through the city they had ruled as kings.