These personages had time to admire and to be admired of all beholders before the more august guest of the occasion arrived. In fact it was a full quarter of an hour before a new splendour of uniforms was seen to mount the stairs at the rear of the box, and the Sultan came in sight. He then made the mistake of entering the compartment reserved for his brother Mehmed Reshad Effendi and his cousin Youssouf Izzeddin Effendi, the next two heirs to the throne—who failed to honour the occasion. With earth-sweeping salaams the master of ceremonies inducted his majesty into the central compartment. There seemed to be something less than imperial ease in the hesitation with which he lingered a moment in the rear of the box. He dropped his glove, and the master of ceremonies picked it up. The dead silence that greeted him when he did step forward was a surprise to those who had witnessed European acclamations of royalty. All rose to their feet and stood with folded hands in the Oriental attitude of respect. They did, however, permit themselves to look up. The Sultan stood with his hand on his sword of empire, looking down, a figure of dignity in his plain dark military overcoat, visibly bowed by years and anxiety, yet not so grey as one might expect, keen-eyed, hawk-nosed, full-bearded, taking in one by one the faces that represented every race and region of his wide domains. The silence and the intentness of that mutual regard grew dramatic as the seconds gathered into minutes. “A wolf in a cage!” whispered some one behind me. There was too little room in the epigram for the strangeness of the scene. One could fill the silence with what one pleased of historic visions, of tragic memories, of hatreds and ambitions, of victory and defeat. But all the East was in that unyielding surrender and in that uncelebrated triumph.