“I should have thought I had learnt by this time to do in Ethiopia as the Ethiopians do,” he grumbled one day to Stratford and Dick, who were entertaining him on the verandah of the Durbar-hall with coffee and conversation; “but I find now that I have some remnants of a Christian conscience left somewhere about me still, old renegade though I am. I simply haven’t got it in me to take the measures which the situation demands. Fath-ud-Din in my place would have had no difficulty. He would merely have had his predecessor brought before him, and tortured until things went smoothly. But he knows that I am not the man to do that, and it gives him a tremendous pull over me when I want to find out something he knows, or when some of his people have to be kept quiet. It isn’t dignified for me to be always going to the mouth of the dungeon and shouting down questions which he refuses to answer, and I have put it to the King that we must try another plan.” This meant that Fath-ud-Din was to be released from the dungeon and kept as a kind of state-prisoner in the Palace. The new plan was successful in so far as he was more disposed to answer questions relating to his past stewardship; but it worked badly when it emboldened his adherents to resist the new Vizier on the ground that he was still afraid of his predecessor, and could not act without his help. The mob of the city, who had always been Fath-ud-Din’s warmest friends, resented his downfall keenly, and lost no opportunity of testifying their hatred to Jahan Beg and the English strangers, to whose influence that downfall was to be ascribed. Once more the Mission was guarded on all sides by soldiers, this time in order to prevent a murderous attack by the mob, whose attitude was extremely threatening. A further danger arose from the fact that there was reason to believe that the soldiers themselves were not altogether to be depended upon, and this added enormously to the anxiety of Stratford and of Jahan Beg. So long as the soldiers could keep down the townspeople, and the Grand Vizier could keep down the soldiers, things were fairly safe; but at any moment a chance spark might fire the train, and an explosion occur, the first results of which would be the murder of Jahan Beg and the massacre of the British Mission. No one left the house during these days of terror, and the gates were barely opened to admit traders and messengers. Within, every man had his revolver ready to his hand, and heaps of sand-bags were in readiness to barricade the entrance to the archway in Bachelors’ Buildings and the windows of the Durbar-hall. The Mission premises were in a state of siege.