rabia, vanished
completely after the murder and left no trace. News came, now from
Serbia, then from Albania, that he had been found, but the rumours
were always false. I chanced to hear something about the matter in
this way. I was on board a Roumanian vessel bound from Constanza to
Constantinople, when I accidentally overheard two Roumanian naval
officers talking together. One of them said: "That was on the day
when the police brought Catarau on board to help him to get away
secretly."

Catarau was heard of later at Cairo, which he appears to have reached
with the aid of Roumanian friends.

It cannot be asserted that the Roumanian Government was implicated in
the plot--but the Roumanian authorities certainly were, for in the
Balkans, as in Russia, there are many bands like the _Cerna Ruka_, the
_Narodna Odbrena_, etc., etc., who carry on their activities alongside
the Government.

It was a crime committed by some Russian or Roumanian secret society,
and the Governments of both countries showed surprisingly little
interest in investigating the matter and delivering the culprits up to
justice.

On June 15 I heard from a reliable source that Catarau had been seen
in Bucharest. He walked about the streets quite openly in broad
daylight, and no one interfered with him; then he disappeared.

To return, however, to my interview with the old King. Filled with
alarm, he dispatched that same evening two telegrams, one to Belgrade
and one to Petersburg, urging that the ultimatum be accepted without
fail.

The terrible distress of mind felt by the King when, like a sudden
flash of lightning from the clouds, he saw before him a picture of the
world war may be accounted for because he felt certain that the
conflict between his personal convictions and his people's attitude
would suddenly be known to all. The poor old King fought the fight to
the best of his ability, but it killed him. King Carol's death was
caused by the war. The last weeks of his life were a torture to him;
each message that I had to deliver he felt as the lash of a whip. I
was enjoined to do all I could to secure Roumania's prompt
co-operation, according to the terms of the Alliance, and I was even
obliged to go so far as to remind him that "a promise given allows of
no prevarication: that a treaty is a treaty, and _his honour_ obliged
him to unsheathe his sword." I recollect one particularly painful
scene, where the King, weeping bitterly, flung himself