FROM THE SCRIPT OF THE VOIVODE, PETER VISSARION,
July 7, 1907.

I had little idea, when I started on my homeward journey, that it
would have such a strange termination. Even I, who ever since my
boyhood have lived in a whirl of adventure, intrigue, or diplomacy--
whichever it may be called--statecraft, and war, had reason to be
surprised. I certainly thought that when I locked myself into my
room in the hotel at Ilsin that I would have at last a spell, however
short, of quiet. All the time of my prolonged negotiations with the
various nationalities I had to be at tension; so, too, on my homeward
journey, lest something at the last moment should happen adversely to
my mission. But when I was safe on my own Land of the Blue
Mountains, and laid my head on my pillow, where only friends could be
around me, I thought I might forget care.

But to wake with a rude hand over my mouth, and to feel myself
grasped tight by so many hands that I could not move a limb, was a
dreadful shock. All after that was like a dreadful dream. I was
rolled in a great rug so tightly that I could hardly breathe, let
alone cry out. Lifted by many hands through the window, which I
could hear was softly opened and shut for the purpose, and carried to
a boat. Again lifted into some sort of litter, on which I was borne
a long distance, but with considerable rapidity. Again lifted out
and dragged through a doorway opened on purpose--I could hear the
clang as it was shut behind me. Then the rug was removed, and I
found myself, still in my night-gear, in the midst of a ring of men.
There were two score of them, all Turks, all strong-looking, resolute
men, armed to the teeth. My clothes, which had been taken from my