The whole occurrence had taken but a moment. The Prince, when he saw the pistol levelled at him, had leapt to his feet, with the evident intention of throwing himself upon his murderer. As it was, his Highness’s intervention seemed very necessary on behalf of the baffled assassin, who stood in no small danger of being lynched incontinently by his furious captors. The carriage had stopped; the escort was hastily dismounting, and the Prince, shouting orders to the people to spare their prisoner’s life, had alighted, and turning, was in the act of throwing his heavy pelisse to his companion, when sudden as thought a second ruffian sprang from amid the vociferating mob, hurled himself upon the Prince, and thrusting a great, broad-bladed Circassian _khanga_ into his bosom, was away and out of sight almost before any of the bystanders had recovered from this second shock of horror and surprise. His Highness, who had sunk to the ground under the blow, though he did not lose consciousness, was at once carried into the Mission-house, distant a few yards only, and very speedily all the best medical advice obtainable in Samakoff was at hand, while telegrams for further assistance were at once despatched to Sofia and to Philippopolis, the latter place being perhaps more rapidly accessible than the capital. The first examination of the wound showed that the broad knife had turned on the point of a rib—very fortunately—and had therefore missed, by a hair’s-breadth the envelope of the heart. It was not till to-day that a persistent recurrence of internal hæmorrhage aroused the gravest fears of the Prince’s surgeons, and prompted them to appeal to Constantinople for further advice. [Illustration: THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF PRINCE FERDINAND OF BULGARIA. ] The pretended priest, when searched, was found to be costumed beneath his robes in the ordinary dress of the petty trader of the towns here. His long flowing locks proved a wig, and his thick unkempt beard was also false. Upon him, among other papers said to be of great importance, but as to which I know nothing, was found a passport issued by the Russian Consulate at Odessa no less recently than last month, and bearing the _visé_ of the Russian Chancellor at Sofia. The passport is made out in the name of Ivan Bendukdjieff, and belongs, the fellow avows, to a man, a stranger to him, who left it with him by mistake a week ago. But the authorities entertain few doubts as to the scoundrel’s identity with one of the men implicated with Shishmanoff in the recent murder of Dr. Vulkovitch.