"You may send a cipher despatch to London, if you like, Mr Martin," he said, as we sat over our cigars. "The documents will all be signed at the Cabinet meeting at noon to-morrow. In exchange for this loan of three millions raised in London, all the contracts for quick-firing guns and ammunition go to your group of financiers." Such was the welcome news his Excellency imparted to me, and you may imagine that I lost no time in writing out a cipher message, and sending it by the man-servant to the nearest telegraph office. For a long time I sat with him, and then he rose, inviting me to walk with him in the Boris Gardens, as was his habit every afternoon, before going down to the sitting of the Sobranje, or Parliament. On our way we passed Vassos, who raised his hat politely to me. "Who's that man?" inquired the Minister quickly, and I told him all I knew concerning the ugly hunchback. In the pretty public garden we were strolling together in the sundown, chatting upon the situation in Macedonia and other matters, when of a sudden, a black-moustached man in a dark grey overcoat and round astrachan cap, sprang from the bushes at a lonely spot, and raising a big service revolver, fired point-blank at his Excellency. I felt for my own weapon. Alas! It was not there! I had forgotten it! The assassin, seeing the Minister reel and fall, turned his weapon upon me. Thereupon, in an instant I threw up my hands, crying that I was unarmed, and was an Englishman. As I did so, he started back as though terrified. His weapon fell from his grasp, and with a spring, he disappeared again into the bushes. All had happened in a few brief instants; for ere I could realise that a tragedy had actually occurred, I found the unfortunate Prime Minister lying lifeless at my feet. My friend had been shot through the heart! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Readers of the newspapers will recollect the tragic affair, which is no doubt still fresh in their minds. I told the Chief of Police of Sofia of my strange experience, and showed him the mark upon my palm. Though detectives searched high and low for the hunchback Greek, for Madame Sovoff, and for the fascinating Mademoiselle, none of them were ever found. The assassin was, nevertheless, arrested a week later, while trying to cross the frontier into Servia. I, of course, lost by an ace the great financial coup, but before execution the prisoner made a confession which revealed the existence of a terrible and widespread conspiracy, fostered by Bulgaria's arch-enemy Turkey, to remove certain members of the Cabinet who were in favour of British influence becoming paramount. Yes. It was a rather narrow squeak.