Nay, more--the government would allow each hostage four piasters a day
for food, a cook would be brought down from Constantinople and meals
served in a restaurant, that they might be saved, as his secretary
observed, from the unlovely "odeurs de'cuisine."

Then it was discovered that the men might stroll about town, provided
they were in groups. They went to the beach and discussed the
feasibility of swimming, they even demurred against the Constantinople
cook as limiting their means of amusing themselves; the aesthetic young
man recovered now, polished his shoes and put a lavender handkerchief in
his breast pocket. The hostages were in a fair way to annex the
deserted village, when a bombshell burst in the shape of a despatch from
the American ambassador that permission had been obtained for all to
come home.

The changing wind now swung full upon us. Scarcely had the message
arrived ere the mutessarifs secretary followed it, lamenting that we
must go. A peacock reposing majestically in the arms of a patient hamal
appeared at the front door, a souvenir for "his excellency."

Appeared also, out of thin air, a neat little horse and phaeton, and a
trooper perched on a high Turkish saddle, with a rifle slung rakishly
across his back, and the bey himself, glasses, fez, and all, astride an
Arab steed. We were to be taken for a drive. Toward the end of it we
reached the flour-mill, the only modern edifice in this ancient town, and
were ushered into the office to sit in a constrained circle, with the
slightly ironical-looking young proprietor--accustomed, perhaps, to such
visits--and his associates, while coffee and cigarettes were brought.
The engineer, an Italian, welcomed us in French; the proprietor, who
spoke nothing but Turkish, smiled inscrutably, and overhead, in several