"I am so sorry, but I daren't talk to you. That is a pleasure to come. I wanted to borrow something, that's all. And, I say, will you allow me to offer you one of my cigarettes—they're the Sultan's brand, you know. Better take the box. Well, I saw you with an eyeglass through the window in the passage. Will you lend it me to appear at the next Selamlik?"
I was delighted, and said so. To my sorrow, the Damad instantly took his departure.
"Smuggle me in something to read," I said, as he left with profuse apologies for his hurry.
He nodded, and his long left eyelash flickered.
Next day his little nigger boy, when the sentry's back was turned, popped about twenty leaflets into my window. I seized them avidly, and found that they were the astounding adventures of Nat Pinkerton in French. Never have my eyes rested so gleefully on a printed page. I consumed them cautiously, else I should have gorged myself with excitement at a single sitting. Like an epicure, I made them last, by always breaking off at the critical juncture of the great detective's affairs. From that moment my life flowed in more agreeable channels.
"Devouring time, blunt though the lion's paws." . . . I suddenly understood Shakespeare's meaning afresh. Time had dulled the clawing of regret.
I had failed to escape, it is true, but there was always hope. Things were getting better. The women had been released. Thémistoclé only awaited a formal trial. My own condition had improved. I had been moved from my solitary confinement, just when I had secured a Bible, and a large tin of Keating's, wherewith to combat the devils of captivity. But any change is better than none at all, I thought. The mortal hunger for companionship is strong, and my new room, besides containing an officer, also enjoyed an excellent and varied view.
After a few days' experience of my new room-mate, however, who was a Bulgarian Bolshevik, I began to pine for solitude again. A more unmitigated Tishbite I have never seen, but fortunately he was smaller than I. When I found him washing his feet in my basin one night, I smote him, hip and thigh.
That Bulgarian has coloured my whole view of the Balkans. The less said about him, the better.