Fortunately the stick had been very dry and had snapped off at the force of the blow; otherwise without a doubt Grunt's skull would have been broken. We put iodine on the wound and bound it up with lint and bandages, and in a few minutes he was discussing matters with the new folk. Beau Brummell said he was a sergeant of gendarmes; his companion had failed to reach the exalted rank of N.C.O. They now produced rope, and, to add insult to injury, they produced it out of our own packs. Two of us were bound together at the elbows, back to back; the rest round the wrists with their hands behind them. The sergeant then started talking--we need not say lying. He was going to take us back to his regiment. He wanted to know where we were going, and we broadly mentioned the Mediterranean. He thought we were men who had escaped from some camp on the railway, and it took long to convince him that we were officers from Yozgad. How had we managed to escape? We pointed out to him that a Turkish sentry is so overworked that his only time for sleep is on sentry duty. At this he had enough sense of humour to smile. He was curious as to the route taken by the others who had escaped the same night as ourselves: had we told him he would no doubt have called on them too, so we merely said we had not seen any of them since we left Yozgad. Finally the whole point of the story was reached, and he started talking business. We had felt for some time that the conversation was veering in that direction, but these delicate situations have to be very carefully handled; so we left it to him to open the subject. He led up to his proposition by asking whether we would prefer to be recaptured or to go to our "memlikat" (home). We need hardly say what was our reply. He then wished to know what money we possessed, and with moderate truth we told him. As already mentioned, we had started each with at least thirty Turkish pounds in paper in addition to some gold; this, then, with the exception of the sums No. 1 and No. 2 had already received from us, and a little we had fortunately concealed in odd places in our clothing, he now took from our pockets. He seemed quite pleased with his takings, as indeed he should have been with such a windfall, and was graciously pleased to signify that he would now let us go. As we were supposed to be penniless, we pointed out that we had yet many miles to the coast and would need to buy provisions on the way: unless, therefore, he left us with some money we should still have to give ourselves up. Upon this he magnanimously gave us back a bunch of small notes, to the value of about seven Turkish pounds.