It was not a beaten host that arrived--or, at all events, no more beaten than that untamable Serbian army which, just at this very same period, was being driven from its own country by the combined Austrians and Bulgars. They had held their own against great odds as long as resistance was possible; and, when forced to retreat under appalling difficulties, they had brought away with them not only their women and children, but a large proportion of their flocks and herds as well. They had indeed suffered heavy losses in the fighting and many women and children had succumbed to the hardships of the retreat. But their spirit was still unbroken, as they were yet destined amply to prove. Their irruption over the border of Persia introduced an additional complication into a medley of anomalies which was already quite complicated enough. Persia was nominally neutral, but too weak to enforce her neutrality; and both combatants were still professedly respecting a neutrality which their every act ignored. Azerbaijan is an appanage of the _Vali Ahd_ (the Persian heir-apparent). The Governor of Urmi is consequently his nominee, and the Governor's Advisory Council are the Moslem notables of the place. But the infamous régime which these gentry had established during the previous winter had been promptly suppressed by the Russians as soon as they returned in the spring. The Governor still held his post--was he not still (nominally) Governor? But the only orders he was allowed to issue were those that were put into his mouth by the Russian "consul." And, if the Russian consul chose to take previous council with anyone, he consulted not the Moslem notables, but the despised local Christians, who possessed no _locus standi_ in the eyes of the Government at all. How intolerable this position must have seemed to a city full of fanatical Moslems will be appreciated by those who know the overbearing arrogance with which fanatical Moslems are accustomed to treat any Christian helots who may be subject to them, and the amount of swagger which an Oriental menial is apt to assume to celebrate his emancipation. But, grin as they might in secret, they did not dare do so openly in the presence of Russian soldiery; and, indeed, though he may be a bully, the Persian is generally a coward. And now to complete their afflictions came this horde of ruffians from the mountains--men whom they despised, not merely as Christians, but as savages yet of whose physical prowess they were all mortally afraid; men who had lost their all, and who (so at least Urmi credited) had been accustomed from their cradles to regard robbery and bloodshed as their ordinary daily work. Here they were with arms in their hands and Urmi at their mercy.