“One runs risks always,” the other answered carelessly, “and besides it is your fault that I am here. Your inaction is unaccountable. There has been no message from you for three days. I am afraid that you are bungling matters.”
“And you—what of you?” the other answered, hotly. “What were your men doing at Solika to be driven back by a handful of half-trained farmers? I expected the Turks at Theos to-day, and all would have been well. Yet with eighty thousand men you do nothing. You too who have boasted of your soldiers and your artillery as the equal of any in Europe.”
The visitor shrugged his shoulders.
“Domiloff,” he said, “you are irritated and nervous. Be careful what you say. I admit that so far we have been checked, but it is not sense to talk of half-trained farmers. Ughtred of Tyrnaus is a fine soldier. Mind, I was with him in Egypt, and he had a sound training there. His dispositions against attack are excellent. He has evidently been thinking them out since first he came here. Then you told us that he had no modern artillery at all.”
“He had not, then,” Domiloff answered. “These batteries were a present from a rich fool of an American or his daughter.”
“The fair Sara Van Decht! I heard that she was here.”
“You know her?”
“She visited at Colonel Erlito’s in London,” Hassen answered. “So did I. But that is of no consequence. You very well know that we relied upon your help to finish this campaign quickly. So far you have done nothing. Perhaps you do not understand the reason for haste. Let me tell you this. Even now the message is before the Sultan waiting for his signature which will recall the troops and bring the invasion to an end.”
“Gorteneff is in Constantinople himself,” Domiloff answered. “He will not allow it to be signed.”
“Gorteneff! So is Sir Henry White in Constantinople. You seem to forget that.”