“You know how grateful we are to you, Hamid. If it had not been for you, we would now be either dead or prisoners of the enemy.”

Hamid did not reply and after a moment she went on,

“We have been in worse situations than this. When I have attended to the Master, you and I must try and think what we can do and – where we can – go.”

Even as she spoke, there was a little tremor in her voice.

She was afraid and, however much she tried to suppress it, the fear was like an animal gnawing inside her.

It had been there for a long time and was accentuated by what she had seen today, the dying man being dragged through the Bazaar, the blood on his face, the shouts, screams and blows of those who reviled him.

It was true that they had been saved so far entirely by Hamid.

If he had not taken them away before the little town and garrison of Balaclava surrendered it was frightening to think what might have occurred.

It now seemed to Yamina, nearly seven months later, almost impossible that she had been so blind to danger that once the Crimean War had started she and their whole household had not immediately returned to St. Petersburg.

The house in Crimea was their summer home and somehow they imagined that they would be safe even when there were rumours of troops landing in Calamita Bay, some forty miles North of Sebastopol.

But their house in the Crimea had always seemed a refuge, a place of security and peace.

It was hard to adjust themselves to any other outlook when the sun was shining, the gardens were more beautiful than Yamina could ever remember them and her father seemed a little better than he had been the previous winter.

The prosperity and popularity of Crimea had begun twenty-five years earlier when the country North of the Black Sea became Russian territory.

It was entirely due to Prince Michael Voronzov, who, having been appointed Governor of New Russia and Bessarabia, had set himself up in magnificent state at Odessa.

The Prince’s brilliant administrative powers were first demonstrated by his creation of a paradise from what had been a wilderness.

At Odessa he encouraged commerce, built harbours, hospitals, colleges, an Opera House, made streets and gathered round him an intelligent, charming, aristocratic circle of men appointed to administer the Province.

He gradually repopulated the desolate steppes and, when he introduced steam navigation to the Black Sea and arranged the import of English cattle, he also invited a number of French viticulturists to stock and supervise the new Crimean vineyards.

Prince Voronzov was so popular and his achievements were so loudly acclaimed in Court circles that a large number of the Russian aristocracy immediately acquired estates and started to build huge mansions along the coast.

Yamina’s father had chosen a site near the beautiful and attractive harbour of Balaclava.