I had not ridden more than a couple of miles towards the city when a thought occurred to me and caused me to draw rein suddenly and call to my companions to halt.
“Anything wrong?” asked Zoiloff, looking about him anxiously.
“It has just occurred to me that, as I’m going to put my head in the lion’s mouth by going to General Kolfort, I had better not go unprepared, and I have just thought of a precaution I can take.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t at present explain to you fully, but you or Spernow can help me. I must find some place before I enter Sofia where I can write for an hour or two. Where can I go?”
He thought a moment, and said:
“The safest place would be back to where you passed the night. I am sure of those people, and they know how to hold their tongues;” and, changing our direction, we set off for the house at a brisk trot.
My intention was to write out a full report now for the British Foreign Office, giving a detailed account of the position of matters in regard to the Russian scheme, of the part I had played in it, and of what I believed to be the Russian designs against me. I did not forget the condition that if I failed the Foreign Office were to be at liberty to disown me, and that the whole and sole responsibility of my present action lay with me, let the consequences be what they might. But I calculated that so far I had kept aloof from committing the Government in any way, and could thus claim the protection of the Foreign Office should any personal violence be contemplated by old Kolfort.
I thought out carefully what I had to say, and when we arrived at the house set to work with a will. I gave a clear description of the Princess’s counterplot, and then added my reason for believing that, although it was likely to fail now, it could yet be used for the advantage of Bulgaria and the Balkan States generally. The Prince had decided to abdicate, and if measures could be taken from Downing Street to have a successor to him ready, whether that successor should be Princess Christina or another, and the abdication so timed as to fit in with such a plan, it would be perfectly feasible to checkmate the Russian move. My own opinion, I declared, was in favour of putting the Princess on the throne, thus apparently acting in co-operation and concert with Russia, while at the same time taking secret measures to prevent any marriage on her part with a Russian ally.
For myself, I asked merely that, in the event of my being imprisoned by General Kolfort, the British representative in Bulgaria might be instructed by telegraph to press either for my being liberated or brought to trial. No more to be done than would be done in the case of an ordinary British subject.