He could hear the prowling dogs of the streets baying the Eastern moon, the owls hooted in the trees, but it was not these distant sounds, all mellowed by the distance, which drove rest and sleep away. It was the imminent sense of the great issues of the morrow, a wild and fierce excitement which forbade sleep or rest and filled his veins with fire. He could not quite realise what awful things hung upon the event of the coming day. He knew that his brain could not contain the whole terror and vastness of the thought. Indeed, he felt that _no_ brain could adequately realise the importance of it all. Yet even that partial realisation of which he was capable was enough to drive all peace away, the live-long night, to leave him nothing but the plangent, burning thought. He was very glad when the cool, hopeful dawn came. The nightmare of vigil was gone. Action was at hand. He prayed in the morning air. Presently, from the city gates, he saw a little cavalcade drawing near, twelve soldiers on wiry Damascene horses, an officer, with the Governor's secretary riding by his side. Those preliminaries of a signed draft upon the bank, which cupidity and the occasion demanded, were soon over. These twelve soldiers and their commandant cost him two hundred pounds "English"; but that was nothing. If his own words were ineffective, then the cord and wedge must do the rest. It had to be paid for. The world was waiting. On through the olive groves and the vines laden with purple. On, over the little stone-bridged cascades and streams--sweet gifts of lordly Ebal--round the eastern wall of the town, crumbling stone where the mailed lizards were sleeping in the sun; on to the low roofs and vivid trees where the Greek traitor had made his home! At length the red road opened before them on to a burnt plain which was the edge and brim of the farm. It lay direct and patent to the view, the place of the great secret. Ionides was waiting for them, under a light verandah which ran round the house, before they reached the building. He had seen them coming over the plain. A little elderly olive-skinned man, with restless eyes the colour of sherry, bowed and bent before them with terrified inquiry in every gesture. His gaze flickered over the arms and shabby uniforms of the soldiers with hate and fear in it mingled with a piteous cringing. It was the look which the sad Greek boatmen on the shores of the Bosphorus wear all their lives. Then he saw Spence and recognised him as the Englishman who had been the friend of Hands, and was at the meetings of the Conference. The sight of the journalist seemed to affect him like a sudden blow. The fear and uneasiness he had shown at the first sight of the Turkish soldiers were intensified a thousand-fold. The man seemed to shrink and collapse. His face became ashen grey, his lips parched suddenly, for his tongue began to curl round them in order to moisten their rigidity.