On reaching the prisoners' camp at Psamattia, our first object was to get in touch with her whom we had already heard of as the guardian spirit of prisoners. With this object in view, we asked to be allowed to attend Sunday service at the English church. Religious worship, we pointed out, should not be interfered with, further than the necessities of war demanded. After some demur the Commandant agreed, and accordingly we went to church. Here it was[7] that we met our guardian angel for the first time. She trembled visibly when we mentioned our plans for escape, and I thought (little knowing her) that we had been rash to speak so frankly. "I strongly advise delay," she whispered--"but I will meet you again at the gardens in Stamboul in two days' time--four o'clock. I'll be reading a----" "_Haide, effendim, haide, haide_," said our sentry, and her last words were lost. Further conversation was impossible, but the forty-eight hours which followed were vivid with anticipation. How were we to manage to get to the gardens of the Seraglio? Would we meet her? Could we talk to her? Would she have a plan? . . . On the day appointed, Robin and I complained of toothache, and asked to be allowed to go into the city to see the dentist. We were at once granted permission. From the dentist's to the Seraglio garden was only a step, but we were four hours too early as yet to keep the rendezvous. However, a large lunch, in which our sentries shared, smoothed the way for a little shopping excursion into Pera. Here, amongst other things, we bought some black hair dye, which completed our arrangements for escape. Other paraphernalia, such as jack-knives, twenty fathoms of rope, maps, compasses, sand-shoes, chocolate and "dope," we had already acquired. Nothing now remained but to find a hiding place, when once we had escaped. At about three o'clock we were sitting in a cafe, eating ices, with our complacent sentries, who had every reason to be complacent for they had been sumptuously fed, as well as liberally tipped. They were quite willing to do anything in reason, and nothing could have been more natural than a stroll in the Seraglio gardens. But just then Robin began to get "Spanish 'flu," which was raging in the city. The symptoms were as sudden as they were unmistakable. Violent shivering, giddiness, weakness--all the ills that flesh is heir to, waylaid him at this vital juncture. He was completely incapable of action.