rted to me, and you may
imagine that I lost no time in writing out a well-concealed message to
Rayne, and sending it by the manservant to the telegraph office.

For a long time I sat with His Excellency, and then he rose, inviting
me to walk with him in the Boris Gardens, as was his habit every
afternoon, before going down to the sitting of the Sobranje, or
Parliament.

On our way we passed Vassos, who raised his hat politely to me.

"Who's that man?" inquired the Minister quickly, and I told him all I
knew concerning the old fellow.

He grunted.

In the pretty public garden we were strolling together in the sundown,
chatting upon the European unrest after the war, the new loan, and
other matters, when, of a sudden, a black-mustached man in a dark grey
overcoat and a round fur cap sprang from the bushes at a lonely spot,
and, raising a big service revolver, fired point-blank at His
Excellency.

I felt for my own weapon. Alas! it was not there! _I had forgotten
it!_

The assassin, seeing the Minister reel and fall, turned his weapon
upon me. Thereupon in an instant I threw up my hands, crying that I
was unarmed, and an Englishman.

As I did so, he started back as though terrified, and with a spring he
disappeared again into the bushes.

All had happened in a few brief instants, for ere I could realize that
a tragedy had actually occurred, I found the unfortunate Minister
lying lifeless at my feet. My friend had been shot through the heart!
It was a repetition of the assassination of the Minister Stambuloff.

Readers of the newspapers will recollect the tragic affair which is,
no doubt, still fresh in their minds.

I told the Chief of Police of Sofia of my strange experience, and
showed him the mark upon my palm. Though detectives searched high and
low for the Greek, for Madame Sovoff, and for the fascinating
mademoiselle, none of them was ever found.

The assassin was, nevertheless, arrested a week later, while trying to
cross the frontier into Serbia. I, of course, lost by an ace Rayne's
great financial _coup_, but before execution the prisoner made a
confession which revealed the existence of a terrible and widespread
conspiracy, fostered by Turkey, to remove certain members of the
Cabinet who were in favor of British protection and assistance.

Quite unconsciously I had, it seemed, become an especial favorite of
the silent, watchful old Konstantinos Vassos. Fearing lest I, in my
innocence, should fal