ood and destroyed the happiness of our children."

"Yes, what is the good of war?" exclaimed the Major. "What is the use of
it? All my fortune is my officer's pay. If I am killed to-morrow, what
will become of my family?"

The examination of the prisoner had changed its character and become a
conversation about families. The Major translated everything to the
Colonel and the latter felt a keen sympathy with the prisoner's
misfortunes.

"Tell him, my friend, that if he really had love for his children, he
would have quietly let himself be taken to Russia, instead of trying to
escape at the risk of death. On his return, he could have taken up
their education again. It would not have been a long interval, only some
months."

Mahmoud Bey replied sadly: "If our wives and kinsmen knew what the
Russians really are, they would all have quietly remained at home,
waiting our return. But no! In a few days from now the whole population
will have fled, and soon as your soldiers arrive in sight of Adrianople,
the town will be abandoned by the inhabitants. Only the Christians will
remain.

"You asked me just now," he continued with a sudden heat, "why I escaped
from the generous officer in whose charge I was. Simply on account of my
family. I wished to go and save my wife and children. You who talk to me
about them, do you know what will become of them? I will tell you. My
wife will be panic-struck and begin by abandoning the house, the
kitchen-garden and everything. It will all become the prey of some Greek
or Armenian. My wife will depart for Constantinople, taking the children
with her. When she has arrived there, she will get no help from the
Government, for where do you think there will be money enough to satisfy
the needs of so many ruined families? There are more than a hundred
thousand of them. Then they will be sent over to Asia Minor, to Scutari,
where they will be forgotten. What will she do herself alone? There
will be only one result. My daughters being beautiful and healthy, she
will be able to sell them to harems, where the poor young things will
forget the very name of their father. My boys will become slaves, while
my daughters will be sold again some day to some rich old man of Aleppo
or Damascus. As to my wife, her first grief once over, she also will go
into some harem. And after a year, when I return, what shall I find?
Nothing, neither house, nor family! I shall not even know where they are
gone; people wil