On a visit to Hilmi Pasha’s office soon after this incident I took occasion to mention it to his excellency. He was completely ignorant of the story, and asked me for details. ‘No, no, Monsieur Moore,’ he declared when I concluded; ‘none of the Sultan’s men would do such a deed.’ ‘But your excellency,’ I said, ‘I know that the Metropolitan of Florina called on the kaimakam and requested him to have the bodies drawn out of the water and buried. The main facts of the story cannot be denied.’ ‘Where did you say the Bulgarians were from?’ asked the Governor. I consulted my note-book and told him. ‘There is no such place.’ ‘Perhaps I have not pronounced the name properly, but the act of treachery remains,’ I contended. ‘Ah, yes,’ said Hilmi, ‘the town was ----;[11] I recollect now. Monsieur Moore, Turks never lie. With your pronunciation and the error in the figures you gave I did not recognise the affair. There were sixty Bulgarians killed, not forty. But the deed was not one of treachery; it happened two days before the Sultan granted pardon to the rebels.’ The inspector-general volunteered some further information on other affairs, notably that of Krushevo. At first the Turks contended that the insurgents had burned and pillaged the Vlach town. Now Hilmi Pasha informed me that bashi-bazouks had done the work. ‘The officers,’ he said, ‘tried to keep them off the heels of the army, but they were many, many, and while occupied fighting the insurgents the troops could not prevent the bashi-bazouks from plundering. I have had thirty bashi-bazouks arrested, and I have just received a report from one of my officers stating that four thousand animals, which were driven off by the bashi-bazouks, have been returned to the inhabitants of Krushevo.’ This statement was both an important admission and an interesting announcement, and I sent it at once to the _Times_, for which I was now correspondent. But a few days later on visiting Krushevo I was compelled to contradict his excellency’s information as to the return of stolen cattle. [Illustration: TURKISH TROOPS.]