"What did you hope to get by escaping? The Turks are retreating everywhere, famine reigns among you, and the population has fled. Would you not have done better to have waited? The war will soon be over, and you would have been able to go home to your own house." "Home to my own house? Where is that?" "I don't understand you." "Well, you soon will. I know how things are going on and have no illusions. An order has recently come from Constantinople telling people to emigrate to Asia Minor. Every one will go; my family with the rest. Where will they go? How am I to find them again? Bah! Don't let us talk about it; it is useless. I did what I thought was my duty; do your own. No one escapes death. That which is to happen, will happen; it is written. No one lives beyond the limit fixed by destiny. What I did was certainly not for myself...." The prisoner's voice broke again, and he made a despairing gesture. "You spoke of your family.... I also have a family," said the Major with a pensive air. "You are very lucky then to be alive, and to be able to go and meet them. You are not a prisoner." "It is for the sake of your family that I question you. You have children?" The prisoner's head sank still lower. There was silence. "Have you many children?" added the Major. "Four," murmured Mahmoud Bey in a low voice. "Are they grown up?" "No, all little. The eldest of the little girls is just six." "Just the age of my rascal," said the Major, as though speaking to himself. "My girl will be very beautiful when she grows up," said the prisoner in a livelier tone. "She has large eyes, which glow already. It is five months since I saw her; she wept much when I went away. My youngest is not yet a year old; he could not yet walk at the time of my departure. They all live down there just outside Adrianople. I had a house and vineyard ... it is so pleasant there. I hoped to see them growing up under my eyes, the little brats. Then this war had to come. A curse on those who provoked it. God is just; He will punish those who have shed our blood and destroyed the happiness of our children." "Yes, what is the good of war?" exclaimed the Major. "What is the use of it? All my fortune is my officer's pay. If I am killed to-morrow, what will become of my family?" The examination of the prisoner had changed its character and become a conversation about families. The Major translated everything to the Colonel and the latter felt a keen sympathy with the prisoner's misfortunes. "Tell him, my friend, that if he really had love for his children, he would have quietly let himself be taken to Russia, instead of trying to escape at the risk of death. On his return, he could have taken up their education again. It would not have been a long interval, only some months."