bokoff and a Montenegrin priest were
arrested (May 18). At once the Russian Consul at that seaport appeared,
demanded the release of the conspirators, and, when this was refused,
threatened the Bulgarian authorities if justice took its course. It is
not without significance that the Czar's warlike speech at Sevastopol
startled the world on the day after the arrest of the conspirators at
Bourgas. Apparently the arrest of Nabokoff impelled the Czar of all the
Russias to uphold the dignity of his Empire by hurling threats against a
State which protected itself from conspiracy. The champion of order in
Russia thereby figured as the abettor of plotters in the Balkans.

The menaces of the Northern Power availed to defer the trial of the
conspirators, and the affair was still undecided when the conspirators
at Sofia played their last card. Bendereff was at that time acting as
Minister of War, and found means to spread broadcast a rumour that
Servia was arming as if for war. Sending northwards some faithful troops
to guard against this baseless danger, he left the capital at the mercy
of the real enemy.

On August 21, when all was ready, the Struma Regiment hastily marched
back by night to Sofia, disarmed the few faithful troops there in
garrison, surrounded the palace of the Prince, while the ringleaders
burst into his bedchamber. He succeeded in fleeing through a corridor
which led to the garden, only to be met with levelled bayonets and cries
of hatred. The leaders thrust him into a corner, tore a sheet out of the
visitors' book which lay on a table close by, and on it hastily scrawled
words implying abdication; the Prince added his signature, along with
the prayer, "God save Bulgaria." At dawn the mutineers forced him into a
carriage, Bendereff and his accomplices crowding round to dismiss him
with jeers and screen him from the sight of the public. Thence he was
driven at the utmost speed through byways towards the Danube. There the
conspirators had in readiness his own yacht, which they had seized, and
carried him down the stream towards Russian territory.

The outburst of indignation with which the civilised world heard of this
foul deed had its counterpart in Bulgaria. So general and so keen was
the reprobation (save in the Russian and Bismarckian Press) that the
Russian Government took some steps to dissociate itself from the plot,
while profiting by its results. On August 24, when the Prince was put on
shore at Reni,