As he sits surrounded by six thousand attendants, eating his pancakes
without table or plate or knife and fork, he is sovereign over lands in
three Continents.

Absolute lord over some of the richest provinces in the world, surrounded
by a fabulous luxury at Constantinople, he is still one of the most abject
and miserable of beings.

This man, known as the "Great Assassin," whose will is law, and whose nod
is death to millions of people, is as ignorant as a child, as nervously
timid as an hysterical woman, and as he cowers in the palace of his
ancestors, he trembles at an approaching footstep.

It is his own subjects that he really fears. The Powers could depose--but
his subjects can assassinate.

The Sultan knows, and the Powers know, that when they demand a vigorous
policy in defence of the Christians they are asking and he is assenting to
an impossibility.

The millions of wild, turbulent people whom he rules only endure his
authority because he stands to them in the place of the Prophet. But the
Prophet taught death to non-Mussulmans.

Should he really be true to his word, and try to bring Kurds and Arnauts
to justice, in defence of Christians, his army would revolt, and his
subjects would depose him in an hour--and deposition would mean death!

It needs all his inherited craft and cunning to keep his head upon his
shoulders at the best of times. And the talk of reforms in the Ottoman