Will there be further massacres? It is an ever-present danger. The Turks do not wish it--it makes trouble with the European Embassies; and, after all, slaughtering the Armenians is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The Kurdish chiefs do not wish it either, for they too stand to lose pecuniarily: but beneath them seethes the fanatical mob, easily roused by hot-headed agitators, a sort of open powder magazine which any stray firebrand may ignite. "I will give you full warning if I can," said a friendly Vali to a gentleman of our acquaintance; "but I can only tell you that I see no danger just now. There is talk of course--there is always talk; and so long as the talk reaches our ears it is not likely to go further. When you see little groups whispering together outside the mosques, and breaking up whenever a Christian passes within earshot--that is the real danger-signal, and you can see that as well as I." There was plenty of "talk" at Diarbekr; and we frequently heard the children (no doubt in imitation of their elders) invoking curses on us as we passed along the streets. The tension must have become greater since: for the Moslems will have been touched in the raw at the result of the Balkan fighting, and are prone to avenge their discomfiture on any Christian who is ready to hand. Moreover the Constitution had not altogether improved matters: for it was inaugurated by a general amnesty whereby all exiles and prisoners had been released. Some were certainly innocent sufferers, but a large number would have been much better kept in durance; and Diarbekr was consequently growing anxious at the intrigues of Abdul Reshek Agha, grandson and heir to Bedr Khan Beg of Massacre memory,[26] who had just got reinstated in his ancestral stronghold in Bohtan. He was credited with an ambition to establish himself under the ægis of the Russians, as Shah of United Kurdistan: and though a "United Kurdistan" is a sufficiently Utopian conception, such an attempt might well begin with an Armenian massacre, and bring Russian intervention in its train. The old régime used to deal with such dangers tactfully, if not altogether discreetly, according to our insular ideas. And this may be exemplified by the case of another Bedr Khan Beg, a scion of the same family--a tale which, if not _vero_, is so _ben trovato_ that we cannot refrain from quoting it; and which at least shows the sort of methods with which the Government was credited, and in which its liege subjects were quite disposed to acquiesce.