CHAPTER XI

The school-house—Plucking geese—Three men in a
sheep-pen—Culinary experiments—Left cooking—
Hunger and thirst —• At Chatalja—The un¬
guarded gates—Military preparations at Hadem¬
keui—The last stage—Constantinople again—
Bulgarian war " news "—Dreams.

Not a morsel of food could we lay our
hands on, despite the most thorough
search, and, tired and dispirited, we
turned for a rest into a building which
proved to be the village school-house.
What a host of sad impressions the place
conjured up ! One could reconstruct with¬
out much difficulty what had happened
here: the lessons interrupted by the terri¬
fying rumour that the Bulgarians were
coming, the frightened rush in which these

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