So the day passed, with long stops, with short advances, with pangs of hunger which a disgusted Orient Express—itself some nine hours late—reluctantly consented to appease, with melodramatic rumours of battle, and with a final sight of soldiers making a thin black ant trail over a bare hill. Night came upon us in the green valley of Sparta Kouleh, at the end of which a gleam of the Marmora was visible, and the Bithynian Olympus ethereal with snow. A bonfire reddened the twilight in front of us, soldiers were singing not far away, frogs or tree-toads made a silver music in the distance. To what grim things, I wondered as we so mysteriously waited, did nature make this soft antithesis? At last a long train, fifty-seven empty freight-cars, rumbled out of the dark from the direction of the city. We then started on again, stopping only to take on and let off officers at way stations, and reached town, fourteen and a half hours late, at half past ten. Expectation, after a checkered approach, had been raised to a pitch. But Constantinople proved a most singularly beleaguered city. I perceived that when I saw a couple of Macedonian officers get off the train with me. I perceived it again when I passed the customs with an unaccustomed ease and drove away through streets that gave no hint of siege. Still more clearly did I perceive it during the three long days that followed my arrival. Beleaguering there was, for rumour peopled the fields of Thrace with advancing thousands, and Hüsseïn Hüssnü Pasha, commander of operations at the front, issued manifestoes. To the garrison he offered immunity on condition of their taking a solemn oath of obedience before the Sheï’h ül Islam. To those of the populace not implicated in the late uprising he promised security of person and property. And both apparently made haste to put themselves on the right side. Deputation after deputation went out to the enemy’s camp in token of surrender. The War Office made plans for provisioning the invaders. Parliament assembled at San Stefano in the shadow of the Macedonian camp, and the fleet followed suit. At the same time the air was tense with the feeling that first came to me when the porter of my sleeping-car called that unknown passenger at Nisch. What was going to happen? It was an indication of the colour of people’s thoughts that the outgoing steamers were crowded during those days, and panics ran through the town like rumours. Some one would shout: “They are coming!” The streets would instantly fill with the rush of feet, the clang of closing shutters.