I explained then that the Consul's stopping of the sale was not conclusive, but provisional; his only stipulation being that, before I paid, all the legal formalities necessary to the transfer should have been fulfilled. 'He asks no more than that your Excellency will condescend to go before the Caimmacam with witnesses, and have a proper title-deed made out.' At those words, uttered in all innocence, the great man shuddered violently and his face went green. I feared that he would have a fit, but he recovered gradually; and at last he said: 'It is a cruel thought, and one which must have been suggested to him by my enemies. Know that the Caimmacam at present is my rival and most deadly foe. We have not met on terms of speech for many years; our servants fight at chance encounters on the road. It is but five years since I held the post of Governor which he now occupies. When, by means of calumny and foul intrigue against me at Stamboul, he managed to supplant me, I swore a solemn oath that I would never recognise the Government nor seek its sanction so long as he remained its representative. And now the Consul bids me have recourse to him. By Allah, I would sooner be impaled alive.' He paused a moment, swallowing his rage, then added: 'This, however, I will do. I will summon all the chiefs of all my people--every head of every family--hither to your presence and command them all to witness that the property is yours. I will make them swear to defend you and your successors in possession of it with their lives if need be, and to leave the obligation as a sacred charge to their descendants. That, I think, would be sufficient to assure you undisturbed possession if I die, as well I may, of this unheard-of treatment. And if I live till happier times--that is, to see the downfall of my enemy--then you shall have the Government certificate which the Consul deems of such immense importance.' I now know that the kind of treaty which he thus proposed, laying a solemn charge on all his people--who would have been, of course, my neighbours--to defend my right, would have been worth a good deal more than any legal document in that wild country. The Armenian gentleman, who was delighted that his mortgage still held good, told me as much when next I saw him in the city. He thought me foolish not to jump at it, particularly when the land was offered to me for a song. But the Consul's prohibition, and the warnings of the English colony, possessed more weight with me just then than his opinion, or, indeed, my own, for I was very young. I told the chieftain it was not enough. 'Then I am truly sorry,' he replied, with dignity; 'but there the matter ends. I have told your Honour the reason why I cannot go to court at present.'