The Albanians did not believe that the Sultan’s soldiers would fire on the faithful, and when the whole force had gathered they marched boldly upon the town by two roads at the same time. They were met by a volley from the troops, and, much cut up, retired. A body of them occupied an old mill across a little stream which bordered the barracks, and fired upon the garrison from there until shelled out. Then the whole number, after collecting their dead--with the tacit permission of the Turks--withdrew to their own towns. But the Russian Consul was not to escape. The garrison of Metrovitza, which was largely Albanian, sympathised thoroughly with the Albanian effort that had failed, and, indeed, every Mohamedan did. The Government had got more than it bargained for. The garrison was sore and sullen, and when the soldiers gathered at the cafés in the evening, it was to deplore the day’s work and to speculate upon the Padisha’s will. At one café a fanatic dervish, after working his hearers to frenzied pitch, exclaimed, ‘And is there not a single Mohamedan who will rid us of this giaour?’ ‘I will,’ said a piping little voice. ‘You! Oh, no, you will not!’ said the dervish scornfully. ‘I will,’ repeated the other. He was a soldier who had been in the fight, a slim, sickly fellow with a sad visage. I saw him on trial at Uskub. The next morning M. Stcherbina, attired in Russian uniform, followed by a Cossack, two heavily armed kavasses, and a troop of soldiers, officers, and officials--the Turks doing honour and service against their convictions--went out to inspect the line of battle, the plan of which, it was alleged, the Russian had directed. As the Consul in great state passed, the sentinels presented arms--which the Russians exact of the Turks. One Mohamedan, required thus to degrade himself, lowered his gun quickly as the Consul passed before him at a distance of three paces, and without waiting to aim, fired a fatal ball into the ‘infidel’s’ body. Then, flinging away his gun, the soldier started at a mad pace down the slope, over the rocks toward the mountains of Albania. The Consul’s retinue, surprised for a moment, were soon after the fugitive, firing fast; but he travelled a hundred yards before they wounded him. The Cossack claimed, and no doubt fired, the telling shot. At his first trial the murderer was condemned to prison for a term of fifteen years. Strange to say, Abdul Hamid is averse from capital punishment. But the Russians were not satisfied with this sentence and demanded a new trial; and at the second hearing, at Uskub (a mock affair with the verdict pre-determined) the soldier was condemned to death. Before he was executed the White Czar pardoned the murderer of M. Stcherbina! But a few months later, not only the murderer of M. Roskowsky, Russian Consul at Monastir, but also a soldier who stood by and saw the deed done, and made no attempt to prevent it, were hanged at Russian command.