and be weakened, or break into premature rebellion. He yielded again and again. Though he kept his popularity with the Lazzaroni and the espadachines, he had incurred the hostility of the nobles, and had fallen out with the Jesuits. It appears that he had offended other classes, partly by starting a violent persecution of sorcery. He is accused of having declared that there was a conspiracy to bewitch him. As a matter of course the supposed witches were women. Numbers were cruelly used and expelled the town. It would be strange if he had not believed in witchcraft, but an outbreak of this kind did look towards insanity. At last, when Venice, the Neapolitan nobles, and the Jesuits had brought the Lords of the Council at Madrid to see that they could act safely, the blow was struck. The needful was done in a way which shows what weakness underlay the solemn professions of power of the Spanish monarchy. The Council did not dare to recall Osuna and send a galleon to bring him home to answer the charges to be made against him. He was manœuvred out by a device which would be in place in a Dumas story. There was at Rome a certain Cardinal Borja, still a young man. He held an official post under the Spanish Government. The Viceroyalty of Naples was promised him on condition that he succeeded in manoeuvring the Duke out of his Government, and so avoiding the risk of an outbreak

which might have serious consequences. Borja carried out his mission in his mission in a style not unworthy of one of Mr Weyman's heroes. The feat was not to be done by open force but by smart adventure.

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The Cardinal left Rome with no display of dignity, and going quickly, without attracting attention, slipped into the island of Procida. Then he very quietly got into communication with friends in the town. By very far the most essential of them was the Maese de Campo Sarmiento, who commanded the fijo," the permanent ' tercio of Spanish soldiers quartered in the castles of Naples. The "fijo" was, if not the only, at least the most rocky of the supports of the King of Spain's Government in the city. The air was full of the nervous stimulant which seems to ooze out of the soil when outbreaks" are brewing. It was known that something was about to happen. Nobody knew exactly what-not at least in the streets where the mob collected and shouted for the Duke. One told the other that he was to be removed from among them, and each, of course, had been told by somebody else in strict confidence, and on the best authority, that the "fijo " would back up the Duke. Some there

were of those about Osuna who did impart this useful information. He himself held back.

It requires no effort of imagination, but only a little

common-sense, to tell any one what must have been going on between Procida and the castles. "Here I am with the King's orders, Señor Maese de Campo. What shall I do?" "Get into here by to-morrow morning, and we will soon make an end of this nonsense, was the only answer Sarmiento would think of making. The Cardinal left Procida in a fishing-boat, landed at a convenient place, and was let into the castle. What preliminaries there might remain to be disposed of were promptly settled. Then the "fijo " was marshalled on the parade ground. The Neapolitan mobility crowded at the ends of streets hoping to hear the fijo" pronounce. An English officer of Indian experience, who was watching an exceptionally well-trained Spanish regiment, said that those little fellows reminded him of Ghurkas. A brigade of Ghurkas, buff-coated and helmeted, pikes in the centre and shot on the flanks, will give an acceptable idea of the appearance of the men on that morning when it depended on them whether the disruption of the Spanish monarchy was to begin there and then or not. The mob did hear them pronounce, but not what it hoped for. The soldiers at Sarmiento's order cheered vigorously for the King. Before the echo of their shout had died down the heels of the last Neopolitan had vanished round the corner and down the street. It may not

have happened just so, but more or less it did.

Osuna's dreams, whatever they were, had vanished too. He offered no resistance to Borja, and, leaving his wife to wind up private affairs, he went back rather slowly to Spain. For a few months he was not molested, but the downfall of the Sandoval connection left him without protectors. So he was sent to prison on charges of heresy and treason. The accusation of heresy was nought. It was usual enough in Spain to bring charges of heterodoxy against men or women who were popular when there was a wish to discredit them. But the

treason? Well, it was never juridically proved; but there were strong indications in the character and conduct of Pedro Tellez Giron of a throw-back to the turbulent Castilian nobles of the Middle Ages, of whom his own ancestor, the Master of Santiago, was a very conspicuous member. With better backing and better luck he might well have succeeded for a while in figuring as Pedro I. of Naples. As it was, he died at Alameda, near Madrid, in 1624. Because his great heart was broken by ingratitude, says Don Cesáreo Duro; because he went raving mad, say others; because the Duchess gave him poison to save the family from the disgrace of a condemnation

if we are to believe such as keep to the faith that the gloomy romantic Spanish lady will do anything.

BASRA ten years before the war was in very much the same state as our troops found it in when they first occupied it. There was the same maze of tortuous lanes ankle-deep in filth, the same total absence of sanitation, and the incredibly uninteresting bazaars with their mixed populations. Altogether it was an extremely dreary place in which to idle away ten days, and this was apparently what I was doomed to do.

I had just come down from the vicinity of Babylon, where I had been engaged in excavation work, and, owing to the Tigris being low, the river steamer on which I had travelled down to Basra had stuck on the shoals so frequently that I had missed the mail steamer to Bombay, from which port I had intended to sail to England. The brightest spot in Basra was the little club standing in the narrow lane between two mud walls, which many officers of the Expeditionary Force afterwards came to know so well; and I was sitting there one sultry evening when a man employed with one of the British mercantile firms, who knew my plight, came up to me. "Look here," he said. "Why don't you go on to Aden

I.

instead of waiting for the mail steamer to Bombay? It is the most direct route home in any case. A steamer has just arrived to take pilgrims to Jeddah, and I hear that she is calling at Aden. She may not be very comfortable perhaps, and she belongs to a native-owned line of no repute, but as it would certainly shorten your journey and also save you a long wait here, it might be worth your while."

It would have been more correct had my friend said that the native-owned steamer Hormuz belonged to a line of coasting steamers with rather a poor reputation. The steamers of the line were manned by natives and officered by Europeans, but many of the latter were merely certificated beach-combers. I had heard many amusing tales of their doings: one voyage a man would sail in command, but by the time that another voyage started he would be so incapable that he had to be discharged, the chief officer would replace him, and as likely as not, owing to the scarcity of certificated officers, the former skipper would go as chief officer. Who took command on the following voyage would depend to a great

extent upon which of them could remain sober the longest. Much of this was due to the fact that the native owners were out to get the cheapest men whom they could procure, and I hasten to say that that state of affairs no longer exists; in a world which is gradually becoming more sober the beachcomber officer has disappeared.

By this time I had completely exhausted the few amenities of Basra, and, as my friend had pointed out, there were many advantages to me in being able to leave it at once and proceed straight to Aden. The next morning I visited Ashar, and called in at the office of the native agents to make inquiries. There I met the captain of the Hormuz. He was a very pleasant and courteous old gentleman, but he did not seem to be at all pleased at the idea of having me as a passenger, although he was much too polite to say so directly. He took me aside and pointed out that the vessel would be absolutely packed with native pilgrims, that his stewards

not used to waiting on Europeans, and that the voyage was certain to be a very unpleasant one. By this time, however, I had begun to rather like the old chap, and when I intimated to the native agents that I had made up my mind to go in the ship and was prepared to pay well for my passage, there was little further opposition.

The Hormuz was lying out in the stream, and was due to

leave the following afternoon. About an hour before sailing time I pushed off to her with my kit in a bellum. I had some difficulty in getting up the gangway ladder and along the main deck to the saloon, and the two kavasses who had come off with me to help with my kit had a terrific struggle to get it to my cabin, for natives were swarming everywhere, and the din which they were making was earsplitting. When I did reach the saloon, which was amidships, I was surprised to see how clean and commodious it was. The Hormuz was an old passenger steamer; she had evidently been well kept, and I had a very roomy cabin. The ship's officers appeared at the moment to be too busy to take much notice of me, but the butler and saloon boys, who were clean and smart, were very attentive, and gave me an excellent tea, after which I went on deck to watch the vessel's departure. Accompanied by an absolute babel from the hordes on deck and their hundreds of friends, who were alongside the ship in various kinds of small craft, the anchor was hove up, the vessel turned round, and we started down the palm-fringed river.

At dinner, which was a very good one, I met the mate, who was a second edition of the captain-rather elderly, courteous, and refined, and also the chief engineer, a Scotsman from the county of Fife, who

lapsed occasionally into his native dialect. My apprehension regarding the officers of the Hormuz began to vanish; seldom had I met more delightful companions. Pres

ently the mate went up on the bridge to relieve the second mate, who came into the saloon for his dinner. I took to the latter at once he was a tall, gentlemanly, young fellow with a frank engaging smile, and I learned that his name was Greatorex. He sat chatting with the captain, chief engineer, and myself until it was time for him to go on the bridge again, when the little party broke up. The weather had been very sultry on shore, but in her progress down the river the vessel was making quite a nice breeze, so that I had no trouble in getting to sleep in my cabin.

The next day we were lying in the outer harbour of Bushire in Southern Persia, where we had gone to discharge the native pilot who had brought the ship down the Shatt-elArab, and also to take on board a few more boat-loads of pilgrims, though where these were going to be stowed away beat me, for the decks and 'tween-decks seemed already to be packed. There was no wind, the glassy waters of the harbour shimmered in the sun, and the white town of Bushire seemed to hang in a mirage between the blazing sky and the expanse of sandy beach. Eventually the occupants of the boats which had pulled

off to us managed to manœuvre themselves up the gangway ladder, and to dissolve themselves in some mysterious manner amongst the other passengers, and we proceeded on our voyage.

As the vessel steamed slowly out of the harbour I looked around her with considerable interest. The officers' rooms, the saloon, the deck above it, which was reserved for Europeans, and the bridge, which rose above that again, seemed to stand up like an island in the middle of a sea of seething humanity. I could hardly have imagined it possible that so many human beings, with their bundles and belongings, could have been packed into such small spaces. They swarmed all over the decks forward and aft of the midship erection, which separated the two mobs, and the noise of their chattering and shouting was continuous. So close were they packed that the Lascars could only with difficulty push their way through them in order to do their various jobs about the deck. My cabin and the saloon were quite comfortable, and I had ample deck space in which to stretch my legs, but the close proximity of those two dense and ever-moving mobs, which seemed to hem us in, had at first rather an unnerving effect.

That evening after dinner I was walking on the saloon deck smoking a cigar, feeling slightly depressed, and rather wishing that the voyage were