The Dark Star

March 25. I have translated the letters. The dead girl's name

was evidently Tatyana, one of several children of some Cossack

chief or petty prince, and on the eve of her marriage to a young

officer named Mitya the Kurds raided the town. They carried poor

Tatyana off along with her wedding chest--the chest fished up with

my grapnel.

In brief, the chest and the girl found their way into Abdul's

seraglio. The letters of the dead girl--which were written and

entrusted probably to a faithless slave, but which evidently never

left the seraglio--throw some light on the tragedy, for they

breathe indignation and contempt of Islam, and call on her

affianced, on her parents, and on her people to rescue her and

avenge her.

And after a while, no doubt Abdul tired of reading fierce,

unreconciled little Tatyana's stolen letters, and simply ended the

matter by having her bowstrung and dumped overboard in a sack,

together with her marriage chest, her letters, and the Yellow

Devil in bronze as a final insult.

She seems to have had a sister, Naïa, thirteen years old,

betrothed to a Prince Mistchenka, a cavalry officer in the Terek

Cossacks. Her father had been Hetman of the Don Cossacks before

the Emperor Nicholas reserved that title for Imperial use. And

she ended in a sack off Gallipoli! That is the story of Tatyana

and her wedding chest.

March 29. Murad arrived, murderously bland and assiduous in his

solicitude for my health and comfort. I am almost positive he

knows that I fished up something from Cove No. 37 under the

theoretical guns of theoretical Fort Osman, both long plotted out

but long delayed.

April 5. My duplicate plans for Gallipoli have been stolen. I

have a third set still. Colonel Murad Bey is not to be trusted. My

position is awkward and is becoming serious. There is no faith to

be placed in Abdul Hamid. My credentials, the secret agreement

with my Government, are no longer regarded even with toleration in

the Yildiz Kiosque. A hundred insignificant incidents prove it

every day. And if Abdul dare not break with Germany it is only

because he is not yet ready to defy the Young Turk party. The

British Embassy is very active and bothers me a great deal.

April 10. My secret correspondence with Enver Bey has been

discovered, and my letters opened. This is a very bad business. I

have notified my Government that the Turkish Government does not

want me here; that the plan of a Germanised Turkish army is

becoming objectionable to the Porte; that the duplicate plans of

our engineers for the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Peninsula have

been stolen.