It did not satisfy the instigators of the demonstration, who later obliged the Sultan to make the desired oath on the Koran. It was his only chance to save his throne. But bitter as his surrender doubtless was, he must have had moments of compensation. One of them occurred on the succeeding Friday, when a hundred thousand people gathered again to see him go to mosque. Hours before the time of the ceremony the precincts of the Palace were invaded, and _hamals_ kicked their heels from the edge of the terrace reserved for visitors with cards from their embassies. A great tree near the mosque was so full of men and boys that two or three branches cracked off. When the imperial cortège came down from the Palace there was such cheering as Abd ül Hamid, accustomed to the perfunctory “_Padishah’m chok yasha!_” of his guard, could scarcely have heard before. The monarch who all his life had been most afraid of bombs and bullets may never have been so nervous, but he stood up like a man, saluting his people with the red-and-white rosette of the constitution pinned to his shoulder. They responded in a frenzy of emotion, tears streaming from many of their eyes. After returning to the Palace the Sultan showed himself again at a balcony and spoke a few words. Could there have been only terror for him in the joyful shouting of a mob that would have torn an assassin to shreds? Could he have seen there only enemies who had overcome him by the brute force of numbers? Could he have felt only the irony of his undoing by the very schools he had created, by the very means he had taken to stamp out individual liberty?