One day when I rode up to the headquarters camp at about two o'clock in the afternoon, I found the whole place in a simmer of suppressed excitement, and addressed myself to Tewfik Pasha, who had been promoted to that rank after the battle, in order to ascertain the cause of the commotion. He told me that the Russians had sent forward a _parlementaire_ to invite Osman Pasha or some officer representing him to meet a Russian general at a certain place and discuss a matter of interest to both. I asked what the subject of discussion was to be, and Tewfik replied that he did not know. He also told me that Osman Pasha wished to go himself, but that his staff were endeavouring to dissuade him, pointing out to him that he would impair his dignity by consenting to meet any officer of lower grade than the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, who at this time was Prince Charles of Roumania. As I sat on my horse at the headquarters camp I saw that Osman Pasha was ready to start. His best horse, a magnificent chestnut charger with a saddlecloth heavily embroidered with gold, was champing the bit in front of the Muchir's tent, and presently Osman Pasha emerged, dressed in his full State uniform, and actually wearing, what I should never have expected to see in Plevna at that grim period, a pair of white kid gloves. It was arranged that if he went he should be accompanied by Tewfik Pasha. At the last moment, however, Osman Pasha yielded to the advice of his staff, and decided to remain behind; so Tewfik Pasha and Czetwertinski went forward with a small escort. They rode out about a mile and a half from Plevna, where they met two Russian officers, and after an elaborate exchange of polite courtesies the business of the conference was broached. It appeared that during the attack on the Grivitza redoubt and the subsequent night attack on the Bash Tabiya many hundreds of men had been killed; and as the Grivitza redoubt remained in the hands of the Russians, and the Bash redoubt, only one hundred and eighty yards away, was still held by the Turks, the corpses both of Turks and Russians which lay between the two works had been left unburied, with the result that the stench had become almost unbearable, and was a serious annoyance to the defenders of both forts. The Russian officers politely pointed out that a removal of the nuisance would be as welcome to them as it would be to the Turks, and courteously offered to send out a burial party and inter all the bodies lying between the Grivitza and the Bash redoubts, if the occupants of the latter work would incommode themselves so far as to abstain from potting at the military gravediggers while they were pursuing their melancholy occupation. Tewfik Pasha and Czetwertinski begged that the Russian officers would excuse them for a moment while they considered the subject, and then, after a brief consultation in Turkish, Czetwertinski as spokesman took up his parable in reply.