I was the only Englishman present at that remarkable ball; and I suppose it is not often that an Englishman finds himself assisting at an entertainment of such half-barbaric splendour, and held under such dramatic circumstances. Every man in the room knew that the commencement of a fierce campaign was only a question of weeks, perhaps days; and we snatched the enjoyment of the hour as gaily as did the guests at the Duchess of Richmond's famous ball in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo. Indeed the parallel between Osman Pasha's ball and the historic ball at Brussels which Byron has celebrated was a very real one. In both cases the dancers were dancing on the edge of a battle-field. In both cases the existence of an empire hung on the issue of the coming struggle. In both cases many of the brave men gathered there amid the music and the flowers and under the flags and lamplight were soon to be lying out upon the blood-soaked plain, cold and deserted--the _débris_ of a dreadful festival. We had no "Brunswick's fated chieftain" there that evening; but the courtly old Turkish colonel who sat up cross-legged on the divan, and watched me so intensely while I danced, makes in my eyes a far more vivid picture. I saw him afterwards, again in a sitting posture, outside a redoubt near Radishevo, when the tide of battle had ebbed back, only to flow again in fiercer volume. His head had fallen forward on his knees, and when I touched him I found that he was dead--cut almost in two by a Russian shell. However, the shadow of the impending war only served to throw the brightness of the ball into stronger relief, and I gave myself up to the business of pleasure with all the ardour of two and twenty. There were only about a dozen of us, mostly members of the medical staff, who were dancing men, and we were consequently kept busy. I generally divided one waltz into three parts; and as the other men followed my lead, we were able to give all the ladies a turn occasionally, and there were no wall-flowers. A big ambulance tent had been pitched in the garden to serve as a supper-room, and we paid for the refreshments as we had them, the money going to the hospital fund. I used to take my partners out after every dance, and the champagne corks were flying almost as thickly as the bullets later on. I recollect that I spent just £9 on suppers and refreshments during the evening. A man is not inclined to be economical when he knows that before long he may have no mouth to put champagne in and no head left to get dizzy with it. Zara Dilber Effendi had got in a splendid supper from Crajova in Roumania, where he also obtained the favours for the cotillion which was danced in perfect style under the direction of the experienced Madame Kronberg and Madame Busch.