he was old enough to understand what “God” meant; but one day during his illness I found him, when he should have been sleeping, weeping bitterly, and to my inquiry as to the cause of his trouble, he replied, “Do you think, Papa, that, if I went to sleep saying my prayers, God would be satisfied if I finished them after I woke?” That terrible hereditary conscience could not be laid, and perhaps the boy was fortunate in his early death.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE MONTENEGRINS AND THEIR PRINCE

To me Russie’s death was a crushing disaster.  The care and constant preoccupation of my life was taken away, and nothing moved me to activity.  I missed him every moment that I was awake, and in my condition I could not rally from the depression caused by the mental void and grief.  I do not think I should have recovered from it had not Mr. Spartali conceived the idea of my going off to Herzegovina, where the insurrection of 1875 was just beginning to stir, and, to cut short my hesitation at the venture as a volunteer correspondent, got me an introduction to the manager of the “Times,” and offered to pay my expenses should the “Times” not accept my letters.  I knew so well the condition in which the Turkish Empire had been left by the Cretan affair, and the apathy that had ruled ever since, that I was convinced that a disaster was pending, and the state to which Russia had brought matters in the Ottoman Empire in 1869 pointed to a Slavonic movement this time.  The manager was not of my opinion; he thought the disturbances would blow over in a few weeks, and nothing serious would come of it.  I went home, but watched the news, and a few days after went again to the office and offered to go out at my own expense, with the understanding that if they printed my letters they should pay me for them, but that they ran no risk and need not print them unless they wished.  The review of my Cretan book in the “Times” now served me as credentials by showing my knowledge of Turkish ways.  At the same time I arranged to send letters to the New York “Herald,” also as a volunteer, for no one then attached any importance to the rising.

Arriving at Trieste in August, 1875, I found that a committee was at work sending arms and ammunition, and, following the coast down, I found other committees at work at Zara and elsewhere, under Austrian auspices, without any attention being paid to their action by the Imperial authorities.  At Ragusa I found the headquarters of the agitation, there under the direction of the captain of the port, Kovachevich, a zealous Slavonic patriot.  The movement was evidently regarded benevolently by the Kaiserlich-Koeniglich, and the insurgents came openly into the city, and returned again to their fighting with fresh supplies of ammunition and provisions.  I pushed on to the Bocche di Cattaro, and at Castel Nuovo found the insurgents coming and going freely, and at Sutorina, in the corner