So Colonel Nazim Bey, an A.D.C. of the Sultan, one of the most detested and feared of the instruments of the Despotism, was sent to Salonica with a body of spies to unearth the secret Committee. Nazim was a typical creature of the Palace. Extravagant and vicious, ever in debt, like Catiline, prodigal of his own while greedy for the possessions of others, clever, and quite unscrupulous, he was ready to sell his soul for the moneys of which he was ever in need. He was appointed Commandant de Palace in Salonica. Denunciations were well paid for, so he denounced many officers, professional men, and students on the flimsiest evidence, for real evidence was not easily procurable. On one day he despatched thirty-eight young officers to Constantinople, who were imprisoned on their arrival. But in many cases those whose arrest he ordered were immediately set free or escaped with the assistance of officials in the police and other departments, many of whom, as I have explained, were secret adherents of the Committee. Nazim, who knew well what found favour in his master’s eyes, also sent reports to the Palace regarding the conduct of his superiors in Salonica, accusing distinguished general officers of the head-quarters staff and others of carelessness, partiality, and covert sympathy with the Young Turks, with the result that he was given still further emoluments, and was so strongly supported by the Palace that he was enabled to arrogate successfully the chief authority in the city. The Committee of Union and Progress condemned Nazim to death, one of his own subordinates signing the decree. A young lieutenant of infantry offered himself as the executioner. Nazim, however, had taken fright, and on July 11 he fled from Salonica. As he was driving to the station in his carriage he was shot at, but was only slightly wounded; so he was able to reach Constantinople and report to the Sultan the information which he had collected concerning the revolutionary movement. [Illustration: VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE] As the result of Nazim Bey’s alarming report, another Commission of inquiry was sent from Constantinople to Salonica. It was under the presidency of Ismail Mahir Pasha, General of Division and A.D.C. to the Sultan—who, it having been discovered by the Committee that he was the leader of a reactionary plot, was shot dead in the streets of Stamboul by an officer in December last—and it contained, among other notable men, Youssouf Pasha, Rejet Pasha, and Sadik Pasha. The ostensible object of the Commission was to inspect arsenals and military stores; but this the Commissioners never attempted to do. They took up their abode in the principal hotel in Salonica. A friend of mine, now editor of one of Turkey’s principal papers, who was told off by the Committee to live in the hotel and keep the Commissioners under observation, found that they rarely ventured out of doors, but sent for and proceeded to examine closely all manner of men.