“Not extraordinarily—­a fair-haired girl of about fifteen, dressed in European clothes.  I fainted from loss of blood, and don’t remember anything else until I found myself in a tent, with two Cossacks patching up my wound.  When I came to, she rushed forward, and thanked me profusely for saving her.  To my surprise, she spoke in French, and on inquiry I found that she was the daughter of a certain Baron Conrad de Hetzendorf, an Austrian, who possessed a house in Budapest and a chateau at Semlin, in South Hungary.  She told us a curious story.  Her father had some business in Transcaucasia, and she had induced him to take her with him on his journey.  Only certain districts of the country were disturbed; and apparently, with their guide and escort, they had unwittingly entered the Aras region—­one of the most lawless of them all—­in ignorance of what was in progress.  She and her father, accompanied by a guide and four Cossacks, had been riding along when they met a party of Kurds, who had attacked them.  Both father and daughter had been seized, whereupon she had lost consciousness from fright, and when she came to again found that the four Cossacks had been killed, her father had been taken off, and she was alone in the brutal hands of those three wild-looking tribesmen.  As soon as she had told us this, the officer of the Cossacks to which I had attached myself called the men together, and in a quarter of an hour the whole body went forth to chase the Kurds and rescue the Baron.  One big Cossack, in his long coat and astrakhan cap, was left to look after me, while Nicosia—­that was the girl’s name—­was also left to assist him.  After three days they returned, bringing with them the Baron, whose delight at finding his daughter safe and unharmed was unbounded.  They had fought the Kurds and defeated them, killing nearly twenty.  Ah, my dear Murie, you haven’t any notion of the lawless state of that country just then!  And I fear it is pretty much the same now.”

“Well, go on,” urged his friend.  “What about the girl?  I suppose you fell in love with her, and all that, eh?”

“No, you’re mistaken there, old chap,” was his reply.  “When she explained to her father what had happened, the Baron thanked me very warmly, and invited me to visit him in Budapest when my leg grew strong again.  He was a man of about fifty, who, I found, spoke English very well.  Nicosia also spoke English, for she had explained to me that her mother, now dead, had been a Londoner.  The Baron’s business in Transcaucasia was, he told me vaguely, in connection with the survey of a new railway which the Russian Government was projecting eastward from Erivan.  For two days he remained with us; but during those days my wound was extremely painful owing to lack of surgical appliances, so we spoke of very little else besides the horrible atrocities committed by the Kurds.  He pressed me to visit him; and then, with an escort of our Cossacks, he and his daughter left for Tiflis; whence he took train back to Hungary.