"Besides, we are so comfortable here," I added parenthetically.
Eventually the wretched man was led gibbering to an underground dungeon. What happened to him afterwards I do not know. I publish this story after careful thought, because, if he was "playing the game" by us, why did he talk to the Turks about escape? If, on the other hand, he was a prison spy, then his punishment is not my affair.
The treachery of the interpreter was an ill wind for everyone, for our guards were sent away to the front (which is tantamount to a sentence of death) and the vigilance of our new guards was greater than that of the old. Intrigue was dead and our isolation complete.
In these circumstances it may be imagined with what excitement I received the news that the German Consul wanted to see me in the commandant's office. It was the first time for a fortnight that I had left my cell.
I entered slowly, and after saluting the company present, first generally, and then individually, I took a dignified seat after the manner of the country. Ranged round the room were various notables of Mosul—doctors, apothecaries, priests, and lawyers. On a dais slightly above us sat the Consul and the commandant. For some time we kept silence, as if to mark the importance of the occasion. Then a cigarette was offered me by the commandant. I refused this offering, rising in my chair and saluting him again.
At last the German Consul spoke.
He had been instructed by telegraph, he told me, to pay me the sum of five hundred marks in gold. The money came from a friend of my father's. I begged him to thank the generous donor, and a whole vista of possibilities immediately rose to my mind.
The money would be given me next day, the Consul continued, and a kavass of the Imperial Government would go with me into the bazaar to make any purchases I required.
This conversation took place in French, a language of which the commandant was quite ignorant, and I saw that here was an ideal opportunity for bringing the plight of our prisoners to light. But the Consul, I gathered, wanted to keep on friendly terms with the Turks. Some of the things I told him, however, made him open his eyes, and may have made his kultured flesh creep.
"I will come again to-morrow," he said hurriedly—"you can tell me more then."