“All right. I’m your man.” The words followed Mr Hicks as he left the room, and another hour saw Mansfield set forth on his embassy. The Citadel, the Seraglio, and the bridge over the Barada left behind, the route lay for a while along a broad, poplar-bordered road, on either side of which were white houses set in green gardens. This pleasant shade came to an end at the foot of the hills, and the rest of the journey presented itself as a hot and weary climb up steep mountain-paths, the monotony of which was only occasionally relieved by a grove of myrtles, or a happy valley with its terraced sides covered with vineyards and mulberry-trees. The interest which he took in his mission armed Mansfield against fatigue, and he clattered at a dangerous pace down slippery paths, and dismounted to lead his horse up steep ascents, with a dogged persistence which did not commend itself to Mr Hicks’s elderly servant, who was irreverently known as Uncle Sam. Two or three brief halts, undertaken purely for the sake of the horses, failed to mollify Uncle Sam, and when the travellers rode into the village of Brutli, only to behold the Deaconesses’ Institution towering above them at the head of a further long ascent, his feelings overcame him. Approaching Mansfield, he hinted darkly that the consequences would probably be serious for both of them if they did not pause and lunch, in view of the early hour at which they had started. Mansfield acquiesced reluctantly, and they asked their way to the inn, which proved to be a more imposing building than those in the other villages they had passed. The reason for this superiority was revealed when the landlord explained with much pride that two gentlemen and several servants belonging to the household of the Queen of Thracia had occupied his best rooms for more than two years past, and that this gratifying fact had obliged him to increase his accommodation for visitors. He pointed, as he spoke, to a pleasant vine-shaded verandah on the opposite side of the courtyard, in which a table was set out in European fashion. A tall thin man had just taken his seat, and a second European, stout and elderly, was standing at the edge of the verandah, peering across the yard into the darkness of the archway in which Mansfield stood. The landlord, with a hurried apology, hastened towards him, to return in a moment beaming with smiles, and bearing a request from the Thracian gentlemen that the English traveller would share their meal. Delighted to find his path made so smooth, Mansfield crossed the courtyard, to be met by the short man at the foot of the verandah-steps, and received with flattering assurances of welcome. “I am ashamed to intrude upon you in this way,” began the guest.