He is in the position of a man frenziedly fighting the unseen. The terror of assassination pervades him.
This is one side of the picture. On the other side, painted by the casual foreigner who has obtained an audience, is the picture of the Sultan as a much-maligned person, invariably and softly courteous, pained at the sinister stories which have been circu lated concerning him. Of all these conflicting stories which

have emanated from the places of his voluntary exile those concerning his, fear of the assaain bear upon them the most obvious marks of truth. That a code of secret signs should exist be tween him and his bodyguards is not in any degree wonderful, but only in the nature of things.
When he grants a private audience it is reported • that he will often turn to the guard and tell them to go. But they do not retire ; they merely fall back, and their orders are not to leave the room until they have been com manded to do so twice.
Atdul Hamid is reported to be more fiercely suspicious concerning the dwellers behind the curtain than is usually the case with the men of the East. Upon this facet of his many sided character a thousand stories shed an uncertain luminance. The absence of proof, however, renders these tales of no practical value to his critics.
At the present moment, however, it is the man himself, and not bis past history which is of supreme interest. Always beset with a tendency to wards the excessive suspicion which has now become ingrained in his nature, Abdul Hamid has allowed his fancies to swamp his reason.
