"Magnificent!" I replied, while we tried hard not to let our self-control be blown over by gusts of laughter. "Then, au revoir, my friend." "Adieu, mister the commandant." He strutted down the platform; and we passed from Alukeeshla to whatever weird experiences might be waiting for us elsewhere. * * * * * This chapter is but an amplification of an inscription signed by H. and myself before we left our mud home. When passing toward Alukeeshla from the station, take the second turning to the right beyond the gendarmerie, then the first to the left, and enter the fifth house in a row of buildings that stare at you from the bottom of a blind alley. Climb some rickety stairs to the back room on the first floor, and you may still find these words on one of the walls: "In memory of some bad days and good yarns, spent and told in this dirty room of this verminous hut in this God-forsaken village. To Hell with the Turks!" CHAPTER VII IN THE SHADOW OF THE BLACK ROCK Moored under a willow tree, we were clearing what was left of the cold chicken and salad from the middle of a punt. I filled the Chambertin bottle with water and dropped it overboard. It plashed and sank noiselessly to the bottom of the Thames. From the far side of our island came the metallic strains of a gramophone, made less blatant by the soft atmosphere of the river. A passing punt-pole clacked, rose from the surface, stabbed the water and clacked again. Flies danced from the hot sunlight into the shade of the willow, and hovered over the remains of our lunch. I composed the cushions and lay down, opposite Phyllis. But the cushions became harder and harder, and the breeze merged gradually into a stuffy, dark oppressiveness. I opened my eyes, and sat up. The head cushion, it appeared, was a sackful of kit, my white flannels were a uniform in creased and dirtied khaki, Phyllis was Alfonso the Turkish guard, and the Thames the military baths at Afion-kara-Hissar, in the centre of Anatolia. Some ragged Turks arrived through the stone passage that led to the hot room, and began undressing. Cuthbert was talking to the bath attendant, while Alfonso lay opposite me and snored. H. and W. also snored in dissonant notes. R. was sorting out his kit. The rest of the party still slumbered silently, stretched out in twisted attitudes on the stone floor. Then I remembered how we were dragged from the train in the early hours of the morning, and had wandered through the streets of Afion-kara-Hissar, looking for the prison camp. Finding it closed to night arrivals, Cuthbert and Alfonso led us to the Madrissah _hammam_, in the courtyard of a mosque. Weary with want of sleep and the hardships of a long journey, we had slept for several hours on the floor of the outer bath-room.