So the Parliamentary troops began to concentrate round the capital, and the reactionaries lost heart. The Palace spies and other deeply compromised persons thought it prudent to flee from the capital. A friend of mine, writing from Constantinople, tells me that a panic seized the people, including many Europeans, and that their hurried departure to catch any steamer in the port, bound for no matter where, was comic, but lacking in dignity. On the other hand, the different Liberal political groups, Moslem, Christian, and Jew, agreed to put aside their party differences and to unite in upholding the Constitution. The Committee of Union and Progress recovered much of the influence and popularity that it had lost, for it was recognised that this organisation alone had the power behind it to enforce the will of the people and defeat the reactionaries. It became plain, too, that the Ministry itself was co-operating with the leaders of the Macedonian army, so as to come to some arrangement that would safeguard the Constitution and at the same time prevent, if possible, the shedding of blood. As for the Sultan, he remained in the Yildiz, inscrutable as ever, and had frequent conferences with Tewfik Pasha, his Grand Vizier, who announced that “His Sublime Majesty awaits benevolently the arrival of the so-called constitutional army. He has nothing to gain or fear, since His Sublimity is for the Constitution and is its supreme guardian.” No preparations for defence or resistance of any sort were made by the Government, and Nazim Pasha and the other Generals in the capital confined themselves to maintaining order in the garrison and preventing any fanatical outbreak on the part of the rough element of the Moslem population. Of the troops forming the garrison a considerable proportion repented that they had taken part in the mutiny, and, acknowledging that they had been misled by lies, were ready to take the oath of fidelity to the Constitution; but, on the other hand, a great many, including the six thousand who were guarding the Yildiz, were faithful to those who had deceived and bribed them, and were prepared to die for the Sultan.