After my second interview with Rustem Pasha another fortnight elapsed, during which I considered anxiously what might happen to me if I returned; and what I should do if I remained in London. Meanwhile I was feeling very unwell, my money was rapidly decreasing, and there was not the slightest prospect of my finding suitable employment, and no possibility of my communicating with my people at home to ask for help, so I decided to return; I thought I now had a chance. As the Sultan knew me, I could get my money from the Government and come back to England. But I was sadly mistaken in my conjectures. It would have been impossible for any man who was not endowed by nature with that particular cunning so necessary for getting on in life to play such a rôle. I discovered my error to my sorrow when I arrived at Constantinople. A past master of the art of deception such as Abd-ul-Hamid was not easily to be outwitted. When I went to the Embassy for the third time I said I would return, so the officials telegraphed to Constantinople, and in three days a money order came. The sum was about seventy-five pounds, and I was urged to start at once by the _Orient Express_. About the beginning of August 1894 I left England, stopping for two weeks on my journey in Paris, and a few days in Buda-Pesth, the capital of the people between whom and the Turks there is a community of origin, and whom we fought and subjugated for generations. On arriving at Constantinople the police officials sternly asked my name, whence I came, and where I was going to put up. I told them I was going direct to the imperial palace, whereupon they saluted me and I got out of the station with some feeling of relief. It was a foolhardy game I was attempting to play. I was now at the mercy of an autocrat who deals with his Osmanli subjects in his own well known fashion, and I was one of the few who was enlightened enough to see his true characteristics, and in consequence to detest his rule at heart In the Yildiz Palace I was really shivering with anxiety, knowing that here thousands of people who were denounced as 'Young-Turks' were imprisoned, examined, and tortured, and then sent into exile. While awaiting my fate in the palace, a certain Faik Bey, one of the Sultan's trusted courtiers, a man of no good repute, came to me with a very kind message from his Majesty. He was glad that I had obeyed him, and come back from the country which "is nursing hostility to Turkey, and plotting against the cause of the Caliphate." I am not certain whether these were the words of the Sultan, or whether his courtier made them up. The Sultan sent me twenty pounds as pocket-money and wished me to go home and rest. Well, this apparently kind treatment was consoling, but, however foolhardy, I had sense enough to see that it was not a good omen for the future. Just as I was leaving the palace I was ordered by the courtier not to mix with people much, and to live as quietly as possible. He also