It was about this time that I first met that remarkable adventurer Olivier Pain, whose history forms one of the strangest pages in the book of political martyrs. Tewfik Bey told me one morning that a Frenchman had arrived in Plevna; and as I was extremely anxious for some news of the outside world, I determined to call on the visitor. He was established in the Bulgarian house which I had not long quitted, and was receiving the scant attention which the black-eyed daughter of the house found time to bestow upon him, and the conversational treat which her one remark "London" occasionally afforded. When I visited the stranger in my old well known quarters, I found a tall, sallow man, apparently about twenty-five years of age, with a small, pointed beard, and an air of intelligence and almost of distinction. He was arranging his few possessions in the room when I entered and introduced myself to him. As my eyes wandered round the room, I was thunderstruck to see this Frenchman pinning upon the wall a photograph of Sydney Harbour, and I asked him at once if he knew Sydney. He replied that he did; and when I told him that I was a native of Melbourne, he said that he had also been in Melbourne, and knew it well. He seemed somewhat troubled at my recognition of the photograph, and at last, speaking in very tolerable English, he said to me, "Sir, I have a very high idea of the honour of an English gentleman, and I take you to be one. If you will promise not to betray me, I will tell you who I am." "Like yourself," I replied, "I am alone here, and it does not matter a straw to me who you are. You are evidently an intelligent and educated man, and that is quite enough for me." Then he told me that he was Olivier Pain, and that during the stormy days of 1871 in Paris he had embraced the cause of the Commune, and been deported for life to New Caledonia, in company with the fiery and _intransigéant_ Henri Rochefort. He had escaped in 1874 with Rochefort to the Australian coast, and had reached Sydney in safety, afterwards making his way to Melbourne, and thence to America, where for some time he lay _perdu_. Venturing back to Europe, however, after many adventures he reached Geneva, and on the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war was engaged as a war correspondent by one of the principal Geneva newspapers.