Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved. Inconsistent punctuation in the ads section has been left as printed.

ARETHUSA

ARETHUSA

ARETHUSA

BY
F. MARION CRAWFORD
AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "A LADY OF ROME,"
ETC., ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
GERTRUDE DEMAIN HAMMOND

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1907

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1906, 1907,
ByTHE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO.

Copyright, 1907,
ByF. MARION CRAWFORD.

Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1907.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

THE STORY-TELLER OF THE BAZAAR
DEDICATES
THIS TALE OF CONSTANTINOPLE
TO HIS DEAR DAUGHTER
ELEANOR

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I

Carlo Zeno, gentleman of Venice, ex-clerk, ex-gambler, ex-soldier of fortune, ex-lay prebendary of Patras, ex-duellist, and ex-Greek general, being about twenty-nine years of age, and having in his tough body the scars of half-a-dozen wounds that would have killed an ordinary man, had resolved to turn over a new leaf, had become a merchant, and was established in Constantinople in the year 1376.

He had bought a house in the city itself because the merchants of Genoa all dwelt in the town of Pera, on the other side of the Golden Horn. A Venetian could not have lived in the same place with Genoese, for the air would have poisoned him, to a certainty; and besides, the sight of a Genoese face, the sound of the Genoese dialect, the smell of Genoese cookery, were all equally sickening to any one brought up in the lagoons. Genoa was not fit to be mentioned within hearing of polite Venetian ears, its very name was unspeakable by decent Venetian lips; and even to pronounce the syllables for purposes of business was horribly unlucky.

Therefore Carlo Zeno and his friends had taken up their abode in the old city, amongst the Greeks and the Bokharians, the Jews and the Circassians, and they left the Genoese to themselves in Pera, pretending that they did not even exist. It was not always easy to keep up the pretence, it is true, for Zeno had extremely good eyes and could not help seeing those abominations of mankind on the other side of the Golden Horn when he sat in his balcony on spring evenings; and his only consolation was to dream of destroying them wholesale, of hewing them in pieces by the hundred and the thousand, and of piling up pyramids of their ugly grinning heads. Why were they Genoese? Carlo Zeno would rather have taken a box on the ear from Sultan Amurad, the Turk, over there in Asia Minor, than a civil word from the least objectionable of those utterly unspeakable monsters of Genoese. 'Behold,' said Tertullian one day in scorn, 'how these Christians love one another.' Matters had not improved in eleven hundred years, since that learned Doctor of the Church had departed this life, presumably for a more charitable world; but Carlo Zeno would have answered that the Genoese were no more Christians than mules, and much less so than the pigs, which are all under the special protection of the blessed Saint Anthony.

At the very time, too, when my story begins, those obnoxious villains of Genoa were on the successful side of a revolution; for they had helped Emperor Andronicus to imprison his father, Emperor John, in the tall Amena tower on the north side of the city, by the Golden Horn, and to lock up his two younger brothers in a separate dungeon. It was true that Emperor John had ordered Andronicus and his little son of five to be blinded with boiling vinegar, but Genoese money had miraculously converted the vinegar into bland white wine, and had reduced the temperature from the boiling point to that of a healthful lotion, so that neither the boy nor the man were any the worse after the application than before; but Andronicus had resented the mere intention on the part of his father, and had avenged himself by taking the Empire, such as it was, for the present, while reserving the delight of murdering his parent and his brothers at a convenient season in the future.

All this was very well, no doubt, and Andronicus was undisputed Emperor for the time being, because the Genoese and Sultan Amurad were willing that he should be; but Amurad had not always been his friend, and the Genoese had not always had the upper hand of the Venetians; the wind might change in a moment and a tempest might whirl him away from the throne even more quickly than the fair breeze had wafted him towards it.

Zeno thought so too, and wondered whether it would please fate to make him the spirit of the storm. He cared very little about Handsome John, as Paleologus was nicknamed, but he cared a great deal for a possible chance of driving the Genoese out of Pera and of getting the island of Tenedos for the Venetian Republic.

And now he had transacted the business of the day, and had dined on a roasted palamit, for it was a Friday and the palamit is the best fish that swims, from the Dardanelles to the Black Sea; and Zeno would no more have eaten meat on a day of abstinence than he would have sat down to table with a Genoese. He had been brought up to be a churchman, and though the attempt to make a priest of him had failed for obvious reasons, he was constant in observing those little rules and regulations which he had been taught to believe conducive to salvation, seeing that he was of a rash temper, prone to seek danger, and never sure of coming home alive when it pleased him to walk abroad. He was not a quarrelsome man on his own account, but he had a most wonderful facility for taking up the quarrels of other people who seemed to be in the right. The more hopeless the just case, or cause, the more certain it was that Carlo Zeno would take it up and fight for it as if it were his own.

But now, if ever, he was peacefully inclined; for the palamit had been done to a turn by the Dalmatian cook; the salad which had followed it had been composed to his liking, with shredded red peppers, pickled olives, anchovies, and cardamom seeds, all mixed among the crisp lettuce; and the draught of wine that had finished the meal had gleamed in the Murano glass like spirit of gold, and the flavour of it, as he had thoughtfully sipped it, had made him think of the scent that still sunshine draws from fruit hanging on vine and tree. He sat in a deep chair on his covered balcony, and was conscious that for the moment peace and privacy were almost as delightful as the best fight in the world. It would have been impossible to say more than that.

The sun was low, for the spring days were not yet long, and the shadow of the city already fell across the deep blue water of the Golden Horn. Zeno gazed down at the moving scene; his keen brown eyes watched the boats gliding by and softened, for what he saw made him think of Venice, the lagoons, and his home. Of all people, the most incorrigible wanderer is generally the most hopelessly sentimental about his native place.

Zeno had brown eyes that could soften like a woman's, but they were much more often keen and quick, turning suddenly to take in at a glance all that could be seen at all, until they fixed themselves with a piercing gaze on whatever interested their owner most for the time being,—his friend, or his adversary, his quarry if he were hunting, a woman's face or figure. He was not a big man, but he was thoroughly well made and well put together, elastic, tough, and active. His small brown hands, compact and firm, seemed ready to seize or strike at instant notice—the ideal hands of a fighting man. There was the same ready and fearless look in his clean-shaven face and small, energetic head, and when he moved his least motion betrayed the same gifts. Women did not think him handsome in those days, when the idea of beauty in man or woman alike was associated with fair or auburn hair and milk-white skin and cherry lips. In fact, Carlo Zeno hardly showed his lips at all, his thick hair was almost black, and his complexion was already as tanned and weather-stained as an old sailor's. But like many men of action he was careful of his dress, and extremely fastidious in his ways. In the ranks, the greatest dandies are often the best soldiers, explain the fact as you will. Some officers say that such men are far too vain to run away. Many a French noble who perished on the scaffold in the revolution bestowed more of his last moments on his toilet than he devoted to his prayers, and died like a hero and a gentleman. There are defects, like vanity, which may sometimes pass for virtues. Carlo Zeno was one of those men whose outward appearance is little affected by what they do, on whom the dust and heat of travel seem to leave no trace; who are invariably clean, neat, and fresh, the envy and despair of ordinary people. His dark-red velvet cap was always set on his thick hair at the same angle, and its sheen was as speckless as if dust did not exist. The narrow miniver border of his wine-coloured cloth coat was never ragged or worn at the edges; the fine linen, gathered at his throat and wrists, never betrayed the least suspicion of dinginess; the mud of Constantinople never clung to the soft Bulgarian leather of his well-made shoes.

Just now, the latter were stuck out in front of him as he leaned back in his deep chair and stretched his legs, asking himself vaguely whether he could be contented for any long time with the quiet life he was leading.

As if in answer to the question, his clerk and secretary, an important little grey-bearded personage, appeared on the balcony at that very moment with a letter in his hand.

'From Venice, sir,' said Omobono—that was his name—'and by the handwriting and the seal I judge it is written by Messer Marco Pesaro.'

Zeno frowned and then smiled, as he generally did at the manifestations of Omobono's incorrigible curiosity. It was the only defect of a most excellent person who was indispensable to Zeno's daily life, and invaluable in his business. Omobono had the sad and gentle face of an honest man who has failed on his own account, but whose excellent qualities are immensely serviceable to stronger men.

Zeno took the letter and glanced towards the harbour, far to the right of his house. Omobono made a short step backwards, but kept his eyes fixed on the paper.

'No foreign vessel has anchored to-day,' said the merchant; 'who brought this?'

'The captain of a Venetian ship, sir, which is anchored outside, before the Port of Theodosius.'

Zeno nodded carelessly as he cut the string. The letter was written on strong cotton paper from Padua, folded six times and secured by twisted hemp threads, of which the final knot had been squeezed into red wax and flattened under a heavy seal. Omobono watched his employer quietly, hoping to learn that he had rightly guessed the correspondent's name. Zeno, intent on reading, paid no attention to the secretary, who gradually edged nearer until he could almost make out the words.

This was what Zeno read, in very long sentences and in the Venetian dialect:—

Most Beloved and Honoured Friend—I despatch this writing by the opportunity of Sebastian Cornèr's good ship, sailing to-morrow, with the help of God, for Constantinople with a cargo of Florence cloth, Dalmatian linen, crossbows, Venetian lace, straw hats, and blind nightingales. May the Lord preserve the vessel, the crew, and the cargo from those unmentionable dogs of Genoese, and bring all safely to the end of the voyage within two months. The cloth, lace, and straw hats are mine, the rest of the cargo belongs to Sebastian Cornèr, except the nightingales, which are a gift from the Most Serene Republic to his majesty the Emperor, together with the man who takes care of the birds. What I say of my share in the cargo, most noble friend, is not as in the way of boasting myself a wealthy merchant, for indeed I am by no means rich, though by my constant industry, my sleepless watchfulness, and my honest dealing I have saved a crust of bread. Nay, I say it rather because I come with a request to you, and in order that you may know that there will be money due to me in Constantinople for the sale of this cargo, through the house of Marin Cornèr, the brother of Sebastian, who will pay you on your demand, most beloved and honoured friend, the sum of three hundred gold ducats. For I feel sure that you will undertake the business I ask, for love of me and a commission of a lira of piccoli for each ducat. I desire, in fact, that you will buy for me the most handsome slave that can be had for the money I offer, or even, if the girl were surpassingly beautiful, for three hundred and fifty ducats. The truth is, most noble friend, that my wife, who is, as you know, ten years older than I, and impeded by rheumatisms, is in need of a youthful and accomplished companion to help her to pass the time, and as I have always made it my duty and my business to fulfil and even, as in the present case, to anticipate her wishes, I am willing to spend this large sum of money for the sole purpose of pleasing her. Moreover I turn to you, most dear sir and friend, well knowing that your kindness is only matched by your fine taste. My wife would, I am sure, prefer as a companion a girl with fine natural hair, either quite black or very fair, the red auburn colour being so common here as to make one almost wish that women would not dye their hair at all. My dear and honoured friend, the teeth are a very important matter; pray give your most particular attention to their whiteness and regularity, for my wife is very fastidious. And also, I entreat you, choose a slave with small ankles, not larger than you can span with your thumb and middle finger. My wife will care less about a very small waist, though if it be naturally slender it is certainly a point of beauty. In all this, dearest sir, employ for love of me those gifts of discernment with which heaven has so richly endowed you, and I trust you will consider the commission a fair one. Sebastian Cornèr, who is an old man, will take charge of the slave and bring her to Venice, if you will only see that she is properly protected and fed until he is ready to sail, and this at the usual rate. I have also agreed with him that she is not to be lodged in the common cabin with the other female slaves whom he will bring from the Black Sea on his own account, but separately and with better food, lest she should grow unpleasingly thin. Yet it is understood that his regular slave-master is to be responsible for her protection, and will watch over her behaviour during the voyage. This, my most worthy, dear and honourable sir and friend, is the commission which I beg you to undertake; and in this and all your other affairs I pray that the hand of Providence, the intercession of the saints, and the wisdom of the one hundred and eighteen Nicene fathers may be always with you. From Venice. Marco Pesaro to the most noble patrician, Carlo Zeno, his friend. The fourteenth day of March in the year 1376.

Zeno smiled repeatedly as he read the letter, but he did not look up till he had finished it. His eyes met those of his secretary, who was now much nearer than before.

'Omobono,' said Zeno gravely, 'curiosity is unbecoming in a man of your years. With your grey beard and solemn air you are as prying and curious as a girl.'

Omobono looked contritely at his folded hands and moved the left one slowly within the right.

'Alas, sir,' he answered, 'I know it. I would that these hands held but a thousandth part of what my eyes have seen.'

'They would be rich if they did,' observed Zeno bluntly. 'It is fortunate that with your uncommon taste for other men's affairs you can at least keep something to yourself. Since you have no doubt mastered the contents of this letter as well as I——'

The good man protested.

'Indeed, sir, how could I have read a single word at this distance? Try for yourself, sir, for your eyes are far younger and better than mine.'

'Younger,' answered Zeno, 'but hardly better. And now send for Barlaam, the Syrian merchant, and bid him come quickly, for he may do business with me before the sun sets.'

'He will not do business to-day,' answered Omobono. 'This is Friday, which the Muslemin keep holy.'

'So much the worse for Barlaam. He will miss a good bargain. Send for Abraham of Smyrna, the Jewish caravan-broker.'

'He will not do business either,' said Omobono, 'for to-morrow is Sabbath, and Shabbes begins on Friday evening.'

'In the name of the blessed Mark our Evangelist, then send me some Christian, for Sunday cannot begin on Friday, even in Constantinople.'

'There is Rustan Karaboghazji, the Bokharian,' suggested Omobono.

Zeno looked sharply at the secretary.

'The slave-dealer?' he enquired.

Omobono nodded, but he reddened a little, poor man, and looked down at his hands again, for he had betrayed himself, after protesting that he knew nothing of the contents of the letter. Zeno laughed gaily.

'You are a good man, Omobono,' he said. 'You could not deceive a child. Do you happen to have heard that Rustan has what Messer Marco wants?'

But Omobono shook his head and grew still redder.

'Indeed, sir,—I—I do not know what your friend wants—I only guessed——'

'A very good guess, Omobono. If I could guess the future as you can the present, I should be a rich man. Yes, send for Rustan. I believe he will do better for me than the Jew or the Mohammedan.'

'They say here that it takes ten Jews to cheat a Greek, and ten Greeks to cheat a Bokharian, sir,' said Omobono.

'To say nothing of those Genoese swine who cheat the whole Eastern Empire! What chance have we poor Venetians in such a place?'

'May heaven send the Genoese the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the halter of Judas Iscariot!' prayed Omobono very devoutly.

'By all means,' returned Zeno, 'I hope so. Now send for the Bokharian.'

Omobono bowed and left the balcony, and his employer leaned back in his chair again, still holding the folded paper in his hand. His expressive face wore a look of amusement for a while, but presently it turned into something more like good-natured contempt, as his thoughts went back from his secretary's last speech, to Marco Pesaro and his letter.

This Pesaro was a fat little man of forty, who had married a rich widow ten years older than himself. Carlo Zeno had known him well before he had been married, a boon companion, a jolly good-for-nothing who loved the society of younger men, and did them no good by example or precept. His father and mother had both perished in the great plague that raged in the year when Zeno was born, and Marco had been brought up by two old aunts who doted on him. The result usual in such cases had followed in due time; he had spent his own fortune and what he inherited from his aunts, who died conveniently, and when near forty he had found himself penniless, a poor relation of a great family, none the worse in health for nearly a quarter of a century of gaiety and feasting, and in temper much inclined to lead the same life for at least another twenty years. The heart was young yet, the round, pink face was absurdly youthful still, but the purse was in a state of permanent collapse, without any prospect of recovery. Then Marco sold everything he had, down to the sword which he had never drawn, and the jewelled dagger which had never done any worse damage than to cut the string of a love-letter; he sold his last silver spoons, his silver drinking-cup and the gold chain and ball from his cloak, and with the proceeds he gave a dozen of his friends one last farewell feast. Then, on the following day, his spirit broken and resigned to his fate, he offered himself to the very rich, elderly, and devout widow who had been making eyes at him for six months, and he was promptly accepted. With some of her money he engaged in the Eastern trade, renounced the follies of his youth, and became a respectable merchant.

It was affluence, it was luxury, but it was slavery and he knew it, and accepted the fact at first with much philosophy. Surely, he said to himself, a good cook and a good cellar, with a fine house at San Cassian, and a virtuous, if elderly, wife ought to satisfy any man of forty. The rest was but vanity. Could anything be more absurd, at his age, than to go on for ever playing the butterfly—such an elderly butterfly!—from one pair of bright eyes to another?

But he had counted without the fact that the butterfly is the final development of its genus and cannot turn into anything else. It must be a butterfly to the end. Poor Marco soon found that his heart was as susceptible as ever, and could beat like a boy's on very slight provocation, but that unfortunately it was never his rich wife who provoked it to such unseemly and lively action. Yet her facial angle inspired him with a terror even greater than the attraction of a pretty face and a well-turned figure. She had a way of setting her thin lips over her prominent teeth which at the same time stretched the skin upon the bridge of her hooked nose while she looked at him from under her half-closed lids, that made his blood run cold, robbed the richest sauce of its delicious flavour, and turned the wine of Samos to vinegar in his glass. Daily, she grew older, sharper, more irritable; and daily, too, the heart of Marco Pesaro seemed to grow younger and the more to crave the companionship of a mate much younger still, or at least the near presence of those outward, visible, and tangible gifts of the gods, such as a deep warm eye, and a soft white hand, with which man has always associated the heart of woman.

Zeno guessed all this and the rest too; the letter he had received needed no further explanation, and for old acquaintance's sake he had no objection to executing the commission Marco had thrust upon him.

And now, all you who stop and gather round the story-teller in this world's great bazaar, to listen, if his tale please you, and to find fault with him if it does not, you cry out that if Carlo Zeno was really the hero history describes him to have been, he would have been very, very grieved at being asked to do anything so inhuman as to buy a pretty slave abroad to be sent home to a friend, even though the latter protested that the girl was to be trained as a companion for his wife. He would have been grieved and angry, he would have torn the letter to shreds, and would either not have answered it at all, or would have written to tell Pesaro that he was a brute, that men and women are all free and equal, and that to buy and sell them is high treason against the majesty of the rights of men.

But to those protests and outcries the story-teller has many answers ready. In the first place, no one had even dreamt of the rights of men in 1376; and secondly, the trade in white slaves was almost as profitable to Venice then as it is in 1906 to certain great states the story-teller could name, with the advantage that there was no hypocritical secret about it, and that it was provided for in international treaties, in spite of the Pope, who said it was wrong; and thirdly, heroes are heroes for ever in respect of their heroic deeds, but in their daily lives they are very much like the other men of their class and time, as you will soon learn if you read the life of Bayard, 'without fear or reproach,' written by his Faithful Servitor; for the faithful one set down some doings of the virtuous knight which a modern biographer would have altogether left out, but which were no more a 'reproach' to a man in the year 1500, than getting drunk was a 'reproach' in 1700, or than stealing anything over a million is a 'reproach' to-day; fourthly and lastly, if Zeno had virtuously refused to buy a slave for Marco Pesaro, there would have been no story to tell, and this seems an excellent argument to the story-teller himself.

Zeno's thoughts soon wandered from Pesaro and the letter, and followed the old thread of life in Venice, till it led his soul through the labyrinth of daily existence far out into the dreamland beyond; and the place of his dreams was a calm and resplendent water, where stately palaces rose through vapours of purple and gold against an evening sky. Over the lagoon came music of old chimes from San Giorgio, and the deeper bells of Venice answered back again; at the instant the sunset breeze floated off the land and breathed into the dyed sails of the Istrians without a sound, so that the boats began to move by magic, gliding out one by one with a soft, low rush, heard only for a moment, as of a woman's hand drawn across silk.

The mere thought of Venice called up the vision of her before the inward eye of his heart; for he loved his native city better than he had ever loved any woman yet, and much better than his own life. When he could think of Venice, until the broad expanse of the lagoon seemed to spread itself over the deeper and darker waters of the Golden Horn, and when he could fancy himself at home, he was supremely and calmly happy, and would not have changed his dream for any reality except its own.

CHAPTER II

Omobono had drawn on a pair of well-greased raw-hide boots that came half-way up his thin legs, and had wrapped himself in his big brown cloak before going out. On his smooth grey head he wore a soft felt hat, the brim turned up round the crown at the back but pulled out to a long point in front, and he carried a tough cornel stick in his right hand. He had been careful to leave in the strong box the purse that contained money belonging to his employer, and had but a few small coins of his own in his wallet to pay a ferryman if he should need one, or to give to a hungry beggar. Like most men who have failed to make money Omobono was very sorry for poor people, and did not believe that all beggars could be rich if they would work. But he was poor himself, and his charity was of the humble kind.

There was a fairly broad street behind Carlo Zeno's house, and here the early spring sun had dried the mud to something like a solid surface; but Omobono followed this thoroughfare only for a little distance, and then turned into a narrow and filthy lane that led to other lanes, and to others still beyond, all crowded with humanity, all dark and muddy, all foul with garbage, all reeking with the overpowering smell of Eastern cooking made up of garlic, frying onions, sour cream, oil of sesame, and roasting mutton where there were Jews or Mohammedans, or fried fish where Christians lived, since it was Friday.

The small wooden houses, black with smoke and the dampness of the past winter, overhung the way so that the opposite balconies of the second stories almost touched each other. Had the buildings been higher, scarcely any light at all would have reached the lower windows; as it was, a man with good eyes might just see to read at noon if he were not too far within.

Omobono evidently knew his way well enough, for he did not pause as he threaded the labyrinth, and only now and then glanced up at certain dingy signs that hung from the crazy wooden balconies, or from wooden arms that stuck out here and there like gallows from the walls. As he walked, he was chiefly occupied in not running against the people he met, and in not stepping upon the half-naked children that squirmed and squalled in the mud before every doorstep. For there were children everywhere, children and dirt, dirt and children, all of much the same colour in those dusky lanes. Near almost every open door the slatternly mother stirred a dark mess of some sort over a little earthen pan of coals, or toasted gobbets of fat mutton on a black iron fork, or fried some wretched fish in boiling oil. The Christian women were by far the dirtiest, and their children were the least healthy and the most neglected, for many of the little creatures had not a stitch of clothing on them. Most decent were the Mohammedans; they had already the bearing and the self-respect of the conquering race, and they treated their Greek and Bokharian neighbours with silent contempt. Did not Sultan Amurad, over there on the Asian shore, make and unmake these miserable little Greek emperors as he pleased? If he chose could he not take Constantinople and turn a stream of Christian blood into the Golden Horn that would redden the Sea of Marmora as far as Antigone and Prinkipo?

Omobono went on and on, picking his way as he might, and little noticed by the people. He was not by any means in the poorest quarter of the city, and no one begged of him as he went by. If he thought of anything except of not setting his booted foot down on some child's sprawling leg or arm, he thanked heaven and the saints that he had been born a Venetian, and had been washed and sent to school like a Christian boy when he was little instead of having first seen the light, or what passed for light, in a back street of Constantinople.

He turned another corner, entered a lane even narrower than those he had yet traversed, but almost deserted, and much less dark because one side of it was occupied by a wall not more than ten feet high, in which only one small door was to be seen. Along the top of the masonry all sorts of sharp bits of rusty iron and a quantity of broken crockery were set in mortar with the evident intention of discouraging any attempt to climb over, either from within or from without. The door itself was in good repair, and had been recently coated with tar and sharp sand by way of preserving it against the damp. A well-worn horizontal slit an inch long, and an upright one a foot higher up, showed that it had two separate Persian locks into which keys were often thrust.

Omobono rapped on the tarred wood with the iron-shod end of his stick and listened. He could hear a number of girls' voices chattering, and one was singing softly in a language he did not understand. He knocked again, a moment later the voices were suddenly silent, and he heard the clacking of heavy slippers on wet flags as some one came to open.

'Who knocks?' asked a deep and harsh female voice from within, in the Greek tongue but with a thick accent.

'A Venetian who has business with the worthy Karaboghazji,' answered Omobono in a conciliatory tone.

'Which Karaboghazji?' enquired the voice suspiciously.

'Rustan,' explained Omobono mildly.

From his voice, the woman probably judged that if he had come with any nefarious purpose she was more than a match for him. The door opened after some rattling and creaking of locks, and Omobono started in spite of himself. She was indeed a match for him, or for any other man who was likely to knock at the door. It was no wonder that the Venetian secretary drew back and hesitated before he spoke again.

The woman was a huge red-haired negress in yellow, fully six feet tall in her heelless slippers, and her black arms, bare above the elbow, were as sinewy and muscular as any fisherman's or porter's. Her thick lips were parted in a sort of savage grin that showed two rows of teeth as sharp and white as a shark's; her hair must have been just dyed that day, for it was as red as flame to the very roots, and it stood out almost straight from her shiny black forehead and temples; as she rather contemptuously scrutinised Omobono from head to foot the whites of her coal-black eyes gleamed in a way that was positively terrifying. She wore wide Greek trousers of blue cotton, gathered at the ankle, and a wadded coat of yellow, that hung down below her knees in loose folds, like a sort of skirt, but fitted tightly over her tremendous shoulders. This garment was closely girded round her ample waist by a red sash, in which she carried her armoury, consisting of a serviceable Arab knife with a bone hilt and brass sheath, and a small whip made of a broad flat thong of hippopotamus hide with a short oak stock.

This terrific apparition stood in the little vestibule holding the door open and grinning at Omobono. She had closed another door behind her before opening the outer one, for the slave-dealer's establishment was evidently managed with a view to the safety of his merchandise.

'And what do you want of Rustan Karaboghazji at this time of the afternoon?' enquired the negress. 'Who are you?'

'I am only a clerk,' answered Omobono in a deprecating tone, and shrinking a little under his cloak, as the awful virago thrust her head forward. 'I am the clerk of Messer Carlo Zeno, a rich Venetian merchant, who sends a message by me to your master——'

'My master!' interrupted the black woman, with a scornful laugh. 'My master, indeed!'

'I—I supposed——' faltered Omobono apologetically.

The negress moved a little and rested one huge hand on her hip, while she slipped the other slowly up the door-post till it was above her head. In this attitude she looked gigantic.

'You mean my husband,' she said, showing all her teeth. 'Rustan Karaboghazji is my husband. Do you understand?'

'Yes, Kokóna—I—I mean Kyría—yes, certainly! I should have known at once that you were the mistress of the house if you had not condescended to open the door yourself, Kyría.'

'And what would become of the cattle,' enquired the negress with a backward toss of her head towards the yard behind her, 'if the stable door were in charge of a slave? If your master—' she dwelt on the two words contemptuously—'wishes to buy of us, he will have to come here and choose for himself.'

'No, no!' answered Omobono hastily. 'It is another matter. I think it is a commission for a friend. It is something very especial. That is why I beg to be allowed to speak with the Kyrios, your husband.'

The black woman had listened attentively.

'At this hour,' she said after a moment's thought, 'Rustan is at his devotions.'

'I would not interrupt them for the world,' protested Omobono. 'I can wait——'

'No. You will probably find him at the church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus. If he is not there, ask the sacristan where he is. My husband is a very devout man; the sacristan knows him well.'

'I hope,' said Omobono, whose curiosity scented a mystery, 'that the sacristan will not take me for an importunate stranger and send me on a fool's errand. If the Kyría would give me some sign by which the sacristan may know that I came from her——'

Omobono paused on this suggestion, hoping for a favourable answer. Again the big woman waited a moment before speaking.

'Ask the sacristan to direct you to find Rustan Karaboghazji, by four toes and by five toes,' she said at last. 'He will certainly tell you the truth if you ask him in that way.'

'By four toes and by five toes,' repeated Omobono. 'I cannot forget that. I thank you, Kyría Karaboghazji, and I wish you a good day.'

The negress nodded and showed her teeth but said nothing more, drew back and shut the door without waiting any longer. Omobono stood still a moment, listened to the slapping of the heavy slippers on the wet flags within, and then went away down the almost deserted lane, wondering much at the taste of the Bokharian merchant in marrying an African giantess. But soon his natural curiosity began to occupy itself more actively with the hidden meaning of the password given him by Rustan's wife; and, meditating on this problem, he made his way through the heart of the city, traversing many narrow and tortuous streets, till he suddenly emerged into a broad highway where marble buildings gleamed in the late afternoon sunshine, and richly dressed Greeks lounged in the wide exedræ and stately porticoes, discussing the affairs of the Empire in general and their neighbours' most particularly.

Omobono trudged along, past the corner of the wide Forum of Theodosius, once the centre of the city's teeming life, but now given over to the tanners and leather-dressers, for one end of it was used as a slaughterhouse and the hides had not to be dragged far to be cured; he walked on quickly, keeping to the left, and was soon in narrow streets again, where afterwards the Grand Bazaar was built, and where even in those days the Persian merchants and the jewellers, the dealers in fine carpets and Eastern merchandise, the perfumers, the Egyptian goldsmiths and the Bokharian money-changers had their homes and the headquarters of their business. Here Omobono exchanged greetings now and then with men of all nationalities except Genoese, and very few of these last were to be seen, for they kept to their own quarter beyond the Golden Horn, in Pera. But Omobono would not stop to talk, and the streets were clean here, and well kept, and the children were not to be seen, so that he could walk quickly, without picking his way.

On still, and farther on; through the almost classic Forum of Constantine, past the hill on which the bronze-bound porphyry column still stands, and down on the other side, keeping the Hippodrome on his left and diving into the Bokharian quarter, as different from the last through which he had come, as that had been from those he had passed before. For then, as now, Constantinople was a patchwork of divers nations and languages and customs, and their quarters were like distinct towns,—some filthy, noisy and unhealthy, some rich and stately, some quiet and poor, some asleep all day and riotous all night, others silent as sleep itself from nightfall till dawn, and noisy all day with the hum of business or the ceaseless hammering clang and clatter of workmen's tools.

Before Omobono emerged upon the little square which then surrounded the churches of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and of Saints Peter and Paul—the latter is now destroyed—he heartily wished that he had hired a horse and man at one of the street corners; but he forgot his weariness when his destination was reached, and he saw a little bandy-legged sacristan in an absurdly short cassock of shabby black and purple cloth, leaning against one of the columns of the portico.

Omobono ascended the broad steps that led up from the level of the street, as though he were going in, but just as he was close to the sacristan he stopped, as if without any premeditation, and made a gesture of salutation, smiling in a friendly way.

'Praised be our Lord,' he said, in the Greek manner.

'Our Lord be praised. Amen,' answered the sacristan indifferently, for it was the custom to do so.

'Could you inform me,' proceeded the Venetian clerk, 'whether that good man Kyrios Rustan Karaboghazji is now in the church at his devotions?'

The sacristan had a perfectly round head with a pair of very small round eyes; moreover, his snub nose was quite round at the end. He now pursed out his lips and made his mouth round, too, as if he were going to whistle. Intentionally or unintentionally, he made himself look like an idiot, and slowly wagged his bullet head as if he did not understand.

'The church is open,' he said, at last. 'You may see,'

Omobono now applauded himself for having asked and obtained a password, but he meant to be cautious in using it.

'Thank you,' he said politely, and he went on, into the church.

The sun was low and cast a rich light through the open door, full upon the grating and closed gate of the sanctuary, and the gilt and burnished bars reflected and diffused the warm rays, like a glory before the unseen high altar. Omobono glanced quickly to the right and left as he passed between the pillars, but he saw no one. Farther on, before him and under the wide dome, two women in brown were at their prayers, the one kneeling, the other prostrate, in Eastern fashion, her forehead resting on the marble pavement. There was no man in sight.

Omobono chose a clean spot, hitched up his cloak in front and knelt upon one knee. He crossed himself and said a little prayer.

'O Lord,' he prayed, 'grant wealth and honour to the Most Serene Republic and give Venice the victory over the Genoese. Bless Messer Carlo Zeno, O Lord, and preserve him from sudden death. Send bread to the poor. Give Omobono strength to resist curiosity. For ever and ever. Amen.'

It was not a very eloquent little prayer and it lacked the set forms of invocation and doxology which devout persons use; but Omobono had made it up for himself long ago, and said it every day at least once, for it precisely expressed what he sincerely wished and intended to ask with due humility; and he was a good man, in spite of his besetting fault, and believed that what he asked would be granted. As yet, Venice had not triumphed over those unspeakable dogs of Genoese, though the day of glory was much nearer than even the Venetians dared to hope. But so far Carlo Zeno had been preserved from sudden death in spite of his manifest tendency to break his neck for any whim; for the rest, Omobono had more than once been the means of saving poor people from starvation, though at some risk of it to himself, poor man; and as for his curiosity, he had at least kept it so far in bounds as never to read his master's letters until his master had opened them himself, which was something for Omobono to be grateful for. On the whole, he judged that his small prayer was not unacceptable, and he used it every day.

He knelt a moment after he had finished it, partly because he was a little ashamed of its being very short though he never could think of anything to add to it, and he did not wish people to think that he was irreverent and gabbled over a prayer merely as a form; for he was very sensitive about such things, being a shy man. And partly he remained on his knees a little longer because the gilded grating was very handsome in the light of the setting sun, and reminded him of the grating in Saint Mark's, and that naturally made him think of heaven. But presently he rose and went out.

The sacristan was still standing by the same pillar.

'Kyrios Rustan is not in the church,' said Omobono, stopping again.

Once more the sacristan seemed to be about to purse his lips into a circle, and to put on an air of blank stupidity, and the clerk saw that the time had come to use the password.

'I must see him,' he said, dropping his voice, but speaking very distinctly. 'I beg you to direct me by four toes and five toes, so that I may find him.'

The sacristan's face and manner changed at once. His small eyes were suddenly full of intelligence, his mouth expanded in a friendly smile, and his snub nose seemed to draw itself to a point like the muzzle of a hound on a scent.

'Why did you not say that at once?' he asked. 'Rustan left the church a quarter of an hour before you came, but he is not far away. Do you see the entrance to the lane down there?'

He pointed towards the place.

'Yes,' said Omobono, 'by the corner.'

'Yes. Go into that lane. Take the first turn to the left, and then the second to the right again. Before you have gone far you will find Rustan walking up and down.'

'Walking up and down?' repeated Omobono, surprised that the Bokharian should select for his afternoon stroll such a place as one might expect to find in the direction indicated.

'Yes.' The sacristan grinned and winked at the Venetian clerk in a knowing way. 'He is a devout man. When he has said his prayers he walks up and down in that little lane.'

The man laughed audibly, but immediately looked behind him to see whether any one coming from within the church had heard him, for he considered himself a clerical character. Omobono thanked him politely.

'It is nothing,' answered the sacristan. 'A mere direction—what is it? If I had asked you for your purse and cloak by four toes and five toes, I am quite sure that you would have given me both.'

'Of course,' replied Omobono nervously, seeing that the reply was evidently expected of him. 'Of course I would. And so, good-day, my friend.'

'And good-day to you, friend,' returned the sacristan.

The clerk went away, devoutly hoping that no unknown person would suddenly accost him and demand of him his cloak in the name of four toes and five toes, and he wondered what in the world he should do if such a thing happened to him. He was quite sure that he should be unable to hide the fact that he knew the magic formula, for he had never been very good at deception; and if the words could procure such instant obedience from such a disagreeable person as the sacristan had at first seemed to be, some dreadful penalty was probably the portion of those who disobeyed the mandate.

Thus reflecting, and by no means easy in his mind, the clerk crossed the square and entered the lane. He had supposed that it led to a continuation of the Bokharian quarter, but he at once saw his mistake. Even now a man may live for years in Constantinople and yet be far from knowing every corner of it, and Omobono found himself in a part of the city which he had never seen. It was in ruins, and yet it was inhabited. Few of the houses had doors, hardly any window had a shutter, and as he passed, he saw that in many lower rooms the light fell from above, through a fallen floor and a broken roof above it.

Yet in every ruined dwelling, and almost at every door, there was some one, and all were frightful to see; all were in rags that hardly clung together, and some could scarcely cover themselves modestly; one was blind, another had no arms or no legs, another was devoured by hideous disease—many were mere bundles of bones in scanty rags, and stretched out filthy skeleton hands for alms as the decently dressed clerk came near. Omobono stood still for a moment when he realised that he was in the beggars' quarter, where more than half the dying paupers of the great city took refuge amidst houses ruined and burnt long ago when the Crusaders had sacked Constantinople, and never more than half repaired since then.

The clerk stood still, for the sight of so much misery hurt him, and it hurt him still more to think that he had but very few small coins in his wallet. The poor creatures should have them all, one by one, but there would be few indeed for so many.

He was talking with an old beggar woman.

And then, as he took out a little piece of bronze money, he heard sounds like nothing he had heard before; like many hundred sighs of suffering all breathed out together; and again, like many dying persons praying in low, exhausted voices; and again, like a gentle, hopeless wail; and through it all there was a pitiful tremor of weakness and pain that went to the clerk's heart. He could do very little, and he was obliged to go on, for his errand was pressing, and the people were as wretched at one door as they would be at the next, so that it was better not to give all his coins at once. He dropped one here, one there, into the wasted hands, and went on quickly, scarcely daring to glance at the faces that appeared at the low doors and ruined windows. Yet here and there he looked in, almost against his will, and he saw sights that sent a cold chill down his back, sights I have seen, too, but need not tell of. And so he went on, turning as the sacristan had instructed him, till he saw a tall, thin man in a brown cloth gown edged with cheap fox's fur, and having a tight fur cap on his head. He was talking with an old beggar woman, and his back was turned so that Omobono could only see that he had a long black beard, but he recognised Rustan, the Bokharian dealer. The house before which the two were standing seemed a trifle better than the rest in the street; there were crazy shutters to the large lower windows, which were open, however; there was a door which was ajar, and an attempt had been made to scrape the mud from the threshold. For the street was damp and muddy after the spring rains, but not otherwise very dirty. There was no garbage, not so much as a cabbage-stalk or a bleaching bone; for bones can be ground to dust between stones and eaten with water, and a cabbage-stalk is half a dinner to a starving man.

In spite of the prayer he had recently offered up against his besetting fault of curiosity, Omobono could not help treading very lightly as he came up behind the Bokharian, and as the mud was in a pasty state, neither hard nor slimy, his heavy boots made hardly any more noise in treading on it than a beggar's bare feet. In this way he advanced till he could see through an open window of the house, and he stood still and looked in, but he made as if he were politely waiting for Rustan to turn round. Either the old beggar woman was blind, or she thought fit not to call the Bokharian's attention to the fact that a well-dressed stranger was standing within a few feet of him. The two talked volubly in low tones and in the Bokharian language, which Omobono did not understand at all, and when he was quite sure that he could not follow the conversation he occupied his curiosity in watching what was going on inside the house. The window was low, having apparently once served as a shop in which the shopkeeper had sat, in Eastern fashion, half inside and half out, to wait upon his customers. During half a minute, which elapsed before Rustan turned round, the clerk saw a good deal.

In the first place his eyes fell on the upturned face of a woman who was certainly in the extremity of dangerous illness, and was probably dying. She had been beautiful once and she had beauty still, that was not only the soft shadow of coming death. The wasted body was covered with nameless rags, but the pillow was white and clean; the refined face was the colour of pure wax, and the dark hair, grey at the temples, had been carefully combed out and smoothed back from the forehead. The woman's eyes were closed, and deeply shadowed by suffering, but her delicate nostrils quivered now and then as she drew breath, and her pale lips moved a little as though trying to speak.

There were young children round the wretched bed, silent, thin, and wondering, as children are when the great mystery is very near them and they feel it. In their miserable tatters one could hardly have told whether the younger ones were boys or girls, but one was much older than the rest, and Omobono's eyes fixed themselves upon her, and he held his breath, lest the Bokharian should hear him and turn, and hide the vision and break the spell.

The girl was standing on the other side of the sick woman, bending down a very little, and watching her features with a look of infinite care and sorrow. One exquisite white hand touched the poor coverings of the bed, rather than rested on them, as if it longed to be of some use, and to relieve the woman's suffering ever so little. But the clerk did not look at the delicate fingers, for his eyes were riveted on the young girl's face. It was thin and white, but its lines were beautiful beyond comparison with all that he had ever seen, even in Venice, the city of beautiful women.

I think that true beauty is beyond description; you may describe the changeless, faultless outlines of a statue to a man who has seen good statues and can recall them; you can perhaps find words to describe the glow, and warmth, and deep texture of a famous picture, and what you write will mean something to those who know the master's work; you may even conjure up an image before untutored eyes. But neither minute description nor well-turned phrase, neither sensuous adjective nor spiritual simile can tell half the truth of a beautiful living thing.

And the fairest living woman is twice beautiful when gladness or love or anger or sorrow rises in her eyes, for then her soul is in her face. As Omobono looked through the window and watched the beggar girl leaning over her dying mother, he hardly saw the perfect line of the cheek, the dark and sweeping lashes or the deep brown eyes—the firm and rounded chin, the very tender mouth, the high-bred nostrils or the rich brown hair. He could not clearly recall any of those things a few minutes later; he only knew that he had seen for once something he had heard of all his life. It was not till he dreamt of her face that night—dreaming, poor man, that she was his guardian angel come to reprove him for his curiosity—that the details all came back, and most of all that brave and tender little mouth of hers, so delicately womanly and yet so strong, and that unspeakable turn of the cheek between the eye and the ear, and that poise of the small head on the slender neck—the details came back then. But in the first moment he only saw the whole and felt that it was perfect; then, for an instant, the eyes looked at him across the dying woman; and in a moment more the Bokharian turned, caught sight of him and came quickly forward, and the spell was broken.

Rustan Karaboghazji held out both hands to Omobono, as if he were greeting his dearest friend, and he spoke in fluent Italian. He was a young man still, not much past thirty, with dark, straight features, stony grey eyes, and a magnificent black beard.

'What happy chance brings you here?' he cried, immediately drawing the Venetian in the direction whence the latter had come. 'Fortunate indeed is Friday, the day of Venus, since it brings me into the path of my honoured Ser Omobono!'

'Indeed, it is no accident, Kyrios Rustan——' began Omobono.

'A double fortune, then, since a friend needs me,' continued the Bokharian, without the slightest hesitation. 'But do not call me Kyrios, Ser Omobono! First, I am not Greek, and then, my honoured friend, I am no Kyrios, but only a poor exile from my country, struggling to keep body and soul together among strangers.'

While he talked he had drawn Omobono's arm through his own and was leading him away from the house with considerable haste. The Venetian looked back, and saw that the old woman had disappeared.

'I have a message from my master,' he said, 'but before we go on, I should like to——' he hesitated, and stopped in spite of Rustan.

'What should you like to do?' asked the latter, with sudden sharpness.

Omobono's hand felt for the last of the small coins in his wallet.

'I wish to give a trifle to the poor people in that house,' he said, summoning his courage. 'I saw a sick woman—she seemed to be dying——'

But Rustan grasped his wrist and held it firmly, as if to make him put the money back, but he smiled gently at the same time.

'No, no, my friend,' he answered. 'I would not have spoken of it, but you force me to tell you that I have been before you there! I take some interest in those poor people, and I have just given enough to keep them for a week, when I shall come again. It is not wise to give too much. The other beggars would rob them if they guessed that there was anything to take. Come, come! The sun is setting, and it is not well to be in this quarter so late.'

Omobono remembered how the sacristan had winked and laughed, when he had spoken of Rustan's walks in the dismal lane, and the Venetian now proceeded to draw from what he had seen and heard a multitude of very logical inferences. That Rustan was an utter scoundrel he had never doubted since he had known him, and that his domestic life was perhaps not to his taste, Omobono guessed since he had seen the red-haired negress who was his wife. Nothing could be more natural than that the Bokharian, having discovered the beautiful, half-starved creature whom Omobono had first seen through the window, should plot to get her into his power for his own ends.

Having reached this conclusion, the mild little clerk suddenly felt the blood of a hero beating in his veins and longed to take Karaboghazji by the throat and shake him till he was senseless, never doubting but that the cause of justice would miraculously give him the strength needed for the enterprise. He submitted to be hurried away, indeed, because the moment was evidently not propitious for a feat of knight-errantry; but as he walked he struck his cornel stick viciously into the pasty mud and shut his mouth tight under his well-trimmed grey beard.

'And now,' said Rustan, drawing something like a breath of relief as they emerged into the open space before the church, 'pray tell me what urgent business brings you so far to find me, and tell me, too, how you came to know where I was.'

Here Omobono suddenly realised that in his deductions he had made some great mistake; for if Rustan had been in the beggars' quarter for such a purpose as the Venetian suspected, how was it possible that he should have left any sort of directions with his wife and the sacristan for finding him, in case he should be wanted on some urgent business? Omobono, always charitable, at once concluded that he had been led away into judging the man unjustly.

'Messer Carlo Zeno, the Venetian merchant, is very anxious to see you this very evening,' he said. 'From his manner, I suspect that the business will not bear any delay and that it may be profitable to you.'

Rustan smiled, bent his head and walked quickly, but said nothing for several moments.

'Does Messer Zeno need money?' he asked presently. 'If so, let us stop at my house and I will see what little sum I can dispose of.'

Mild as Omobono was, an angry, contemptuous answer rose to his lips, but he checked it in time.

'My master never borrows,' he answered, with immense dignity. 'I can only tell you that so far as I know he wishes to see you in regard to some commission with which a friend in Venice has charged him.'

Rustan smiled more pleasantly than ever, and walked still faster.

'We will go directly to Messer Zeno's house, then,' he said. 'This is a most fortunate day for buying and selling, and perhaps I have precisely what he wants. We shall see, we shall see!'

Omobono's thin little legs had hard work to keep up with the Bokharian's untiring stride, and though Rustan made a remark now and then, the clerk could hardly answer him for lack of breath. The sun had set and it was almost dark when they reached Zeno's house, and the secretary knocked at the door of his master's private room.

CHAPTER III

When it was quite dark the old woman came back with something hidden under her tattered shawl, and Zoë drew the rotten shutters that barely hung by the hinges and fastened them inside with bits of rain-bleached cord that were knotted through holes in the wood. She also shut the door and put up a wooden bar across it. While she was doing this she could hear Anastasia, the crazy paralytic who lived farther down the lane, singing a sort of mad litany of hunger to herself in the dark. It was the thin nasal voice of a starving lunatic, rising sharply and then dying away in a tuneless wail:—

Holy Mother, send us a little food, for we are hungry!

Kyrie eleeison! Eleeison!

Blessed Michael Archangel, gives us meat, for we starve! Eleeison!

O blessed Charalambos, for the love of Heaven, a kid roasted on the coals and good bread with it! Eleeison, eleeison! We are hungry!

Holy Sergius and Bacchus, Martyrs, have mercy upon us and send us a savoury meal of pottage! Eleeison! Pottage with oil and pepper! Eleeison, eleeison!

Holy Peter and Paul and Zacharius, send your angels with fish, and with meat, and with sweet cooked herbs! Eleeison, let us eat and be filled, and sleep! Eleeison! Spread us your heavenly tables, and let us drink of the good water from the heavenly spring!

Oh, we are hungry! We are starving! Eleeison! Eleeison! Eleeison!

The miserable, crazy voice rose to a piercing scream, that made Zoë shudder; and then there came a little low, faint wailing, as the mad woman collapsed in her chair, dreaming perhaps that her prayer was about to be answered.

Zoë had shut the door, and there was now a little light in the ruined room; for Nectaria, the old beggar woman, had been crouching in a corner over an earthen pan in which a few live coals were buried under ashes, and she had blown upon them till they glowed and had kindled a splinter of dry wood to a flame, and with this she had lit the small wick of an earthen lamp which held mingled oil and sheep's fat. But she placed the light on the stone floor so shaded that not a single ray could fall towards the door or the cracked shutters, lest some late returning beggar should see a glimmer from outside and guess that there was something to get by breaking in and stealing; for they were only three women, one dying, one very old, and the third Zoë herself, and two young children, and some of the beggars were strong men who had only lost one eye, or perhaps one hand, which had been chopped off for stealing.

When the light was burning Zoë could see that the sick woman was awake, and she poured out some milk from a small jug which Nectaria had brought, and warmed it over the coals in a cracked cup, and held it to the tired lips, propping up the pillow with her other hand. And the sick one drank, and tried to smile.

Meanwhile Nectaria spread out the rest of the supplies she had brought on a clean board; there was a small black loaf and three little fishes fried in oil, such as could be bought where food is cooked at the corners of the streets for the very poor. The two children gazed at this delicious meal with hungry eyes. They were boys, not more than seven and eight years old, and their rags were tied to them, to cover them, with all sorts of bits of string and strips of torn linen. But they were quite quiet, and did not try to take their share till Zoë came to the board and broke the black loaf into four equal portions with her white fingers. There was a piece for each of the boys, and a piece for Nectaria, and the girl kept a piece for herself; but she would not take a fish, as there were only three.

'This is all I could buy for the money,' said Nectaria. 'The milk is very dear now.'

'Why do you give it to me?' asked the sick woman, in a sweet and faint voice. 'You are only feeding the dead, and the living need the food.'

'Mother!' cried Zoë reproachfully, 'if you love us, do not talk of leaving us! The Bokharian has promised to bring a physician to see you, and to give us money for what you need. He will come in the morning, early in the morning, and you shall be cured, and live! Is it not as I say, Nectaria?'

The old woman nodded her head in answer as she munched her black bread, but would say nothing, and would not look up. There was silence for a while.

'And what have you promised the Bokharian?' asked the mother at last, fixing her sad eyes on Zoë's face. 'Did ever one of his people give one of us anything without return?'

'I have promised nothing,' Zoë answered, meeting her mother's gaze quietly. Yet there was a shade of effort in her tone.

'Nothing yet,' said the sick woman. 'I understand. But it will come—it will come too soon!'

She turned away her face on the pillow and the last words were hardly audible. The little boys did not hear them, and would not have understood; but old Nectaria heard and made signs to Zoë. The signs meant that by and by, when the sick woman should be dozing, Nectaria had something to tell; and Zoë nodded.

There was silence again till all had finished eating and had drunk in turn from the earthen jar of water. Then they sat still and silent for a little while, and though the windows and the door were shut they could hear the mad woman singing again:—

Eleeison! Spread heavenly tables! Eleeison! We are starving! Eleeison! Eleeison! Eleeison!

The sick woman breathed softly and regularly. The little boys grew sleepy and nodded, and huddled against each other as they sat. Then old Nectaria took the light and led them, half asleep, to a sort of bunk of boards and dry straw, in a small inner room, and put them to bed, covering them as well as she could; and they were soon asleep. She came back, shading the light carefully with her hand; and presently, when the sick woman seemed to be sleeping also, Nectaria and Zoë crept softly to the other end of the room and talked in whispers.

'She is better to-night,' said the girl.

Nectaria shook her head doubtfully.

'How can any one get well here, without medicine, without food, without fire?' she asked. 'Yes—she is better—a little. It will only take her longer to die.'

'She shall not die,' said Zoë. 'The Bokharian has promised money and help.'

'For nothing? he will give nothing,' Nectaria answered sadly. 'He talked long with me this afternoon, out in the street. I implored him to give us a little help now, till the danger is passed, because if you leave her she will die.'

'Did you try to make him believe that if he would help us now you would betray me to him in a few days?'

'Yes, but he laughed at me—softly and wisely as Bokharians laugh. He asked me if one should feed wolves with flesh before baiting the pit-fall that is to catch them. He says plainly that until you can make up your mind, we shall have only the three pennies he gives us every day, and if your mother dies, so much the worse; and if the children die, so much the worse; and if I die, so much the worse; for he says you are the strongest of us and will outlive us all.'

'It is true!' Zoë clasped her hands against the wall and pressed her forehead against them, closing her eyes. 'It is true,' she repeated, in the same whisper, 'I am so strong!'

Old Nectaria stood beside her and laid one wrinkled cheek to the cold wall, so that her face was near Zoë's, and they could still talk.

'If I refuse,' said the girl, quivering a little in her distress, 'I shall see you all die before my eyes, one by one!'

'Yet, if you leave your mother now——' the old woman began.

'She has lived through much more than losing me,' answered Zoë. 'My father's long imprisonment, his awful death!' she shuddered now, from head to foot.

Nectaria laid a withered hand sympathetically on her trembling shoulder, but Zoë mastered herself after a moment's silence and turned her face to her companion.

'You must make her think that I shall come back,' she whispered. 'There is no other way—unless I give my soul, too. That would kill her indeed—she could not live through that!'

'And to think that my old bones are worth nothing!' sighed the poor old woman; she took the rags of Zoë's tattered sleeve and pressed them to her lips.

But Zoë bent down, for she was the taller by a head, and she tenderly kissed the wrinkled face.

'Hush!' she whispered softly. 'You will wake her if you cry. I must do it, Ria, to save you all from death, since I can. If I wait longer, I shall grow thinner, and though I am so strong I may fall ill. Then I shall be worth nothing to the Bokharian.'

'But it is slavery, child! Do you not understand that it is slavery? That he will take you and sell you in the market, as he would sell an Arab mare, to the highest bidder?'

She tenderly kissed the wrinkled face.

Zoë leaned sideways against the wall, and the faint light that shone upwards from the earthen lamp on the floor, fell upon her lovely upturned face, and on the outlines of her graceful body, ill-concealed by her thin rags.

'Is it true that I am still beautiful?' she asked after a pause.

'Yes,' answered the old woman, looking at her, 'it is true. You were not a pretty child, you were sallow, and your nose——'

Zoë interrupted her.

'Do you think that many girls as beautiful as I are offered in the slave market?'

'Not in my time,' answered the old woman. 'When I was in the market I never saw one that could compare with you.'

She had been sold herself, when she was thirteen.

'Of course,' she added, 'the handsome ones were kept apart from us and were better fed before they were sold, but we waited on them—we whom no one would buy except to make us work—and so we saw them every day.'

'He says he will give a hundred Venetian ducats for me, does he not?'

'Yes; and you are worth three hundred anywhere,' answered the old slave, and the tears came to her eyes, though she tried to squeeze them back with her crooked fingers.

The sick woman called to the two in a weak voice. Zoë was at her side instantly, and Nectaria shuffled as fast as she could to the pan of coals and crouched down to blow upon the embers in order to warm some milk.

'I am cold,' complained the sufferer, 'so cold!'

Zoë found one of her hands and began to chafe it gently between her own.

'It is like ice,' she said.

The girl was ill-clothed enough, as it was, and the early spring night was chilly; but she slipped off her ragged outer garment, the long-skirted coat of the Greeks, and spread it over the other wretched coverings of the bed, tucking it in round her mother's neck.

'But you, child?' protested the sick woman feebly.

'I am too hot, mother,' answered Zoë, whose teeth were chattering.

Nectaria brought the warm milk, and Zoë lifted the pillow as she had done before, and held the cup to the eager lips till the liquid was all gone.

'It is of no use,' sighed her mother. 'I shall die. I shall not live till morning.'

She had been a very great lady of Constantinople, the Kyría Agatha, wife of the Protosparthos Michael Rhangabé, whom the Emperor Andronicus had put to death with frightful tortures more than a year ago, because he had been faithful to the Emperor Johannes. Until her husband had been imprisoned, she had spent her life in a marble palace by the Golden Horn, or in a beautiful villa on the Bosphorus. She had lived delicately and had loved her existence, and even after all her husband's goods had been confiscated as well as all her own, she had lived in plenty for many months with her children, borrowing here and there of her friends and relatives. But they had forsaken her at last; not but that some of them were generous and would have supported her for years, if it had been only a matter of money, but it had become a question of life and death after Rhangabé had been executed, and none of them would risk being blinded, or maimed, or perhaps strangled for the sake of helping her. Then she had fallen into abject poverty; her slaves had all been taken from her with the rest of the property and sold again in the market, but old Nectaria had hidden herself and so had escaped; and she, who knew the city, had brought Kyría Agatha and her three children to the beggars' quarter as a last refuge, when no one would take them in. The old slave had toiled for them, and begged for them, and would have stolen for them if she had not been profoundly convinced that stealing was not only a crime punishable at the very least by the loss of the right hand, but that it was also a much greater sin because it proved that the thief did not believe in the goodness of Providence. For Providence, said Nectaria, was always right, and so long as men did right, men and Providence must necessarily agree; in other words, all would end well, either on earth or in heaven. But to steal, or kill by treachery, or otherwise to injure one's neighbour for one's own advantage, was to interfere with the ways of Providence, and people who did such things would in the end find themselves in a place diametrically opposite to that heaven in which Providence resided. Of its kind, Nectaria's reasoning was sound, and whether truly philosophical or not, it was undeniably moral.

Zoë was not Kyría Agatha's own daughter. No children had been born to the Protosparthos and his wife for several years after their marriage, and at last, in despair, they had adopted a little baby girl, the child of a young Venetian couple who had both died of the cholera that periodically visited Constantinople. Kyría Agatha and Rhangabé brought her up as their own daughter, and again years passed by; then, at last, two boys were born to them within eighteen months. Michael Rhangabé's affection for the adopted girl never suffered the slightest change. Kyría Agatha loved her own children better, as any mother would, and as any children would have a right to expect when they were old enough to reason. She had not been unkind to Zoë, still less had she conceived a dislike for her; but she had grown indifferent to her and had looked forward with pleasure to the time when the girl should marry and leave the house. Then the great catastrophe had come, and loss of fortune, and at last beggary and actual starvation; and though Zoë's devotion had grown deeper and more unselfish with every trial, the elder woman's anxiety now, in her last dire extremity, was for her boys first, then for herself, and for Zoë last of all.

The girl knew the truth about her birth, for Rhangabé himself had not thought it right that she should be deceived, but she had not the least recollection of her own parents; the Protosparthos and his wife had been her real father and mother and had been kind, and it was her nature to be grateful and devoted. She saw that the Kyría loved the boys best, but she was already too womanly not to feel that human nature must have its way where the ties of flesh and blood are concerned; and besides, if her adoptive mother had been cruel and cold, instead of only indifferent where she had once been loving, the girl would still have given her life for her, for dead Rhangabé's sake. While he had lived, she had almost worshipped him; in his last agonies he had sent a message to his wife and children, and to her, which by some happy miracle had been delivered; and now that he was dead she was ready to die for those who had been his; more than that, she was willing to be sold into slavery for them.

She stood by the bedside only half covered, and she tried to think of something more that she might do, while she gazed on the pale face that was turned up to hers.

'Are you warmer, now?' she asked tenderly.

'Yes—a little. Thank you, child.'

Kyría Agatha closed her eyes again, but Zoë still watched her. The conviction grew in the girl that the real danger was over, and that the delicately nurtured woman only needed care and warmth and food. That was all, but that was the unattainable, since there was nothing left that could be sold; nothing but Zoë's rare and lovely self. A hundred golden ducats were a fortune. In old Nectaria's hands such a sum would buy real comfort for more than a year, and in that time no one could tell what might happen. A turn of fortune might bring the Emperor John back to the throne. He had been a weak ruler, but neither cruel nor ungrateful, and surely he would provide for the widow of the Commander of his Guards who had perished in torment for being faithful to him. Then Zoë's freedom might be bought again, and she would go into a convent and live a good life to the end, in expiation of such evil as might be thrust upon her as a bought slave.

This she could do, and this she must do, for there was no other way to save Agatha's life, and the lives of the little boys.

'A little more milk,' said the sick woman, opening her eyes again.

Nectaria crouched over the embers, and warmed what was left of the milk. Zoë, watching her movements, saw that it was the last; but Kyría Agatha was surely better, and would ask for more during the night, and there would be none to give her; none, perhaps, until nearly noon to-morrow.

Nectaria took the pan of coals away to replenish it, going out to the back of the ruined house in order to light the charcoal in the open air. The sick woman closed her eyes again, being momentarily satisfied and warm.

Zoë sank upon her knees beside the bed, forgetting that she was cold and half-starved, as the tide of her thoughts rose in a wave of despair.

The fitful night breeze wafted the words of the mad woman's crooning along the lane, 'Eleeison! Eleeison!'

And Zoë unconsciously answered, as she would have answered in church, 'Kyrie eleeison!'

'Blessed Michael, Archangel, give us meat, we starve!' came the wild song, now high and distinct.

'Kyrie eleeison!' answered Zoë on her knees.

Then she sprang to her feet like a startled animal. Some one had knocked at the door. With one hand she gathered her thin rags across her bosom, the other unconsciously went to the sick woman's shoulder, as if at once to reassure her and to bid her be silent.

Again the knocking came, discreet still, but a little louder than before. Nectaria was still away and busy with the pan of coals, and the sick woman heard nothing, for she was sound asleep at last. Zoë saw this, and drew her bare feet out of her patched slippers before she ran lightly to the door.

'Who knocks?' she asked in a very low tone, clasping her tattered garment to her body.

The Bokharian's smooth voice answered her in oily accents.

'I am Rustan,' he said. 'I am suddenly obliged to go on a journey, and I start at dawn.'

Zoë held her breath, for she felt that the last chance of saving her mother was slipping away.

'Do you hear me?' asked Rustan, outside.

'Yes.'

'Will you make up your mind? I will give half as much again as I promised.'

The girl's face had been pale; it turned white now, for the great moment had come very suddenly. She made an effort to swallow, in order to speak distinctly, and she glanced towards the bed. Kyría Agatha was in a deep sleep.

'Have your brought the money with you?' Zoë asked, almost panting.

'Yes.'

The hand that grasped the rags to keep them together pressed desperately against her heart. While Rustan could have counted ten, there was silence. Twice again she looked towards the bed and then, with infinite precaution, she slipped out the wooden bar that kept the door closed. Once more she drew her rags over her, for they had fallen back when she used both her hands. She opened the door a little, and saw Rustan muffled in a cloak, his eager face and black beard thrust forward in anticipation of entering. But she stopped him, and held out one hand.

'My mother has fallen into a deep sleep,' she said. 'Give me the money and I will go with you.'

Without hesitation Rustan placed in her outstretched hand a small bag made of coarse sail-cloth, and closely tied with hemp twine.

'How much is it?' she whispered.

'One hundred and fifty gold ducats,' answered the Bokharian under his breath, for he knew that if he did not wake the sleeping woman there would be less trouble.

At that moment Nectaria came back from within, with the pan of coals. Zoë caught her eye and held out the heavy little bag. The woman stared, looked at Kyría Agatha's sleeping face, set down the pan upon the floor, and came forward.

'He has brought the money, a hundred and fifty ducats,' Zoë whispered, forcing the bag into Nectaria's trembling hands. 'It is the only way. Good-bye—quick—shut the door before she wakes—tell her I am asleep in the straw—God bless you——'

'Eleeison! Eleeison!' came the wail of the mad woman on the wind.

Before Nectaria could answer Zoë had pulled the door till it shut behind her, and was outside, barefooted on the hardening mud, and scarcely covered. She said nothing now, and Rustan was silent too, but he had taken one of her wrists and held it firmly without hurting it. The fleet young creature might make a dash for freedom yet, foolish as that would be, since he could easily force his way into the ruined house and take back his money if she escaped him. But he had nearly lost a young slave once before, and he would risk nothing, so he kept his strong hand tightly clasped round the slender wrist, though Zoë walked beside him quietly in the deep gloom, thinking only of covering herself from his gaze, though indeed he could scarcely see the outline of her figure.

They went on quickly. For the last time, as Rustan led her round a sharp turn, she heard the wild cry of the poor mad creature she had listened to so often by day and in the dead of night. Then she was in another street and could hear it no more.

She was not allowed time to think of her condition yet. A few steps farther and Rustan stopped short, still holding her fast by the wrist, and she saw that they had come upon a group of men who were waiting for them. One suddenly held up a lantern which had been covered, and now shed a yellow light through thin leaves of horn, and Zoë saw that he was a big Ethiopian, as black as ebony. She drew her tatters still more closely over her with her free hand and turned away from the light, as well as Rustan's unrelaxing hold would allow.

A moment later some one she could not see threw a wide warm cloak over her shoulders from behind her, and she caught it gladly and drew the folds to her breast.

'Get into the litter,' said Rustan, sharply but not loudly.

There was nothing soft or oily in his tone now. He had bought her and she was a part of his property. Four men had lifted a covered palanquin and held it up with the small open door just in front of her. She turned, sat upon the edge, and bent her head to slip into the conveyance backwards, as Eastern women learn to do very easily. Rustan held her wrist till she was ready to draw in her feet, and as he let her go at last she disappeared within. He instantly closed the sliding panel and fastened it with a bronze pin. There were half-a-dozen round holes in each door to let in air, not quite big enough to allow the passage of an ordinary woman's hand.

Zoë sank back in the close darkness and found herself leaning against yielding pillows covered with soft leather. The palanquin began to move steadily forwards, hardly swaying from side to side, and not rising or falling at all, as the porters walked on with a smooth, shuffling gait, each timing his step a fraction of a second later than that of the man next before him; lest, by all keeping step together, they should set their burden swinging, which is intolerable to the person carried.

Four men carried the litter, a fifth, armed with an iron-shod staff, went before with the lantern, and Rustan followed after. There was nothing in the appearance of the party to excite surprise or curiosity in a city where every well-to-do person who went out in the evening was carried in a palanquin, and accompanied by at least two trusty servants. For that matter, too, Rustan's business was perfectly legitimate, and it concerned no one that he should have a newly bought beauty carried in a closed litter from a distant quarter of the city to his home.

It was true that he had no receipt for his money, acknowledging that it was the stipulated price paid for a full-grown white maid between eighteen and nineteen years old, with brown eyes, brown hair, twenty-eight teeth, all sound, and a pale complexion; who weighed about two Attic talents and five minæ, and measured just six palms, standing on her bare feet. In strict law, he should have had such a document, signed by the father or mother or owner of the slave, but he knew that he was quite safe without it. Like all Bokharians, he was a profound judge of human nature, and he was quite sure that having once submitted to her fate Zoë would not cheat him by claiming the freedom she had sacrificed; moreover, he knew that the adopted daughter of Michael Rhangabé who had died on the stake in the Hippodrome as an enemy of the reigning Emperor, would have but a small chance of obtaining justice, even if she attempted to prove that she had been carried off by force. Rustan Karaboghazji felt that his position was unassailable as he followed the litter that carried his latest bargain through the winding streets of Constantinople towards the narrow lane, one side of which was formed by that mysterious wall which had but one door in it.

He was well pleased with his day's business, for he was quite sure that he had netted a handsome profit. Under his cloak he held a string of beads in one hand, and as he walked he made the calculation of his probable gains, pushing the beads along the string with his thumb. He had paid one hundred and fifty gold ducats for Zoë; but fifty of them were at least a quarter of their value under weight, so that the actual value of the gold was one hundred and thirty-seven and a half ducats. He was quite sure that Zeno would approve the purchase on a careful inspection, and that he would be willing to give three hundred and fifty sequins, though the girl was a little over age, as slaves' ages were counted. She should have been between sixteen and seventeen, yet she was exceptionally pretty, and spoke three languages—Greek, Latin, and Italian. If Zeno paid the price, the clear profit would be two hundred and twelve and a half ducats. The beads worked quickly in Rustan's fingers, and his hard grey eyes gleamed in the dark. Two hundred and twelve and a half on one hundred and thirty-seven and a half, by the new Venetian method of so much in the hundred, which was a very convenient way of reckoning profits, meant one hundred and fifty-four and a half per centum. The beads worked furiously, as the merchant's imagination carried him off into a mercantile paradise where he could make a hundred and fifty per cent on his capital every day of the year except Sundays and high feast days. This calculation was complicated, even for a Bokharian brain, but it was a delightful one to follow out, and Rustan's blood coursed pleasantly through his veins as he walked behind his purchase.

He had lost no time after he had left the beggars' quarter late in the afternoon, by no means sure that Zoë meant to surrender at all, and very doubtful as to her doing so within the next three days. Yet he had boldly promised that Carlo Zeno should see her on approval on the following morning. After all, he risked nothing but a first failure, for if he did not succeed in buying Zoë in time he could nevertheless show the Venetian merchant some very pretty wares. Zeno was not a man to waste words with such a creature as a slave-dealer, and the interview had not lasted ten minutes. It had taken longer than that to weigh the ducats in order to be sure that a certain number of them were under weight. The only thing Rustan now wished was that he had put many more light ones into the bag, since it had not even been opened; for he had naturally expected to be obliged to count them out before old Nectaria, who had a born slave's intelligence about money.

Inside the litter the girl lay on her cushions in the dark, wondering with a sort of horror at what she had done. She had thought of it indeed, through many days and sleepless nights, and she did not regret it; she would not have gone back, now that she had left plenty and comfort where there had been nothing but ruin and hunger; but she thought of what was before her and prayed that she might close her eyes and die before the morning came, or better still, before the litter stopped and Rustan drew back the sliding door.

In an age and a land of slavery, the slave's fate was familiar to her. She knew that there were public markets and private markets, and that her beauty, which meant her value, would save her from the former; but to the daughter of freeborn parents the difference between the one and the other was not so great as to be a consolation. She would be well lodged, well covered, and well fed, it was true, and she need not fear cruel treatment; but customers would come, perhaps to-morrow, and she was to be shown to them like a valuable horse; they would judge her points and discuss her and the sum that Rustan would ask; and if they thought the price too high they would go away and others would come, and others, till a bargain was struck at last. After that, she could only think of death as the end. She knew that many handsome girls were secretly sold to Sultan Amurad and the Turkish chiefs over in Asia Minor or in Adrianople, and it was more than likely that she herself would fare no better, for the conquerors were lavish with their gold, whereas the Greeks were either half-ruined nobles or sordid merchants who counted every penny.

The men carried the litter smoothly and steadily, never slackening and never hastening their pace. The time seemed endless. Now and then she heard voices and many steps, with the clatter of horses' hoofs, which told her that she was in one of the more frequented streets, but most of the time she heard scarcely anything but the shuffling walk of the men in their heavy sandals and the firmer tread of Rustan's well-shod feet where the road was hard. She guessed that he was avoiding the great thoroughfares, probably because the people who thronged them even at that hour would have hindered the progress of the palanquin. Zoë knew as well as the dealer that there was nothing as yet in the transaction which need be hidden; possibly, if she were afterwards sold to the Turks, she would be taken across the Bosphorus secretly, for though there was no law against selling Christian girls to unbelievers the people of the city looked upon the traffic with something like horror, and an angry crowd might rescue the merchandise from the dealer's hands. Zoë did not expect that rare good fortune, for Rustan was not a man to run any risks in his business.

As she lay among her cushions, dreading the end of the journey, but gradually wearying of the future, her thoughts went back to the first cause of all her misfortunes, of Michael Rhangabé's awful death, of all the suffering that had followed them. One man alone had wrought that evil and much more, one man, the reigning Emperor Andronicus. Zoë was not revengeful, not cruel, very far from bloodthirsty; but when she thought of him she felt that she would kill him if she could, and that it would only be justice. Suddenly a ray of something like hope flashed through her darkness. Nectaria had told her how beautiful she was; perhaps, being so much more valuable than most of the slaves that went to the market, she might be destined for the Emperor himself. It was just possible. She set her teeth and clenched her little hands in the dark. If that should be her fate, the usurper's days were numbered. She would free her country from its tyrant and be revenged for Rhangabé's murder and for all the rest at one quick stroke, though she might be condemned to die within the hour. That was indeed something to hope for.

The litter stopped and she heard keys thrust into locks, and felt that the porters turned short to the left to enter a door. Her journey through the city was at an end.

CHAPTER IV

Rustan stayed behind to shut the outer door, and Zoë felt that she was carried as much as twenty paces forward and upwards before the bearers stood still at last. Then the sliding panel opened, letting in light, and a strange voice told her to get out. She turned inside the palanquin and thrust out her naked feet. As she put them down, expecting to touch bare earth or a stone pavement, they rested on a rough carpet; at the same instant she sat on the edge of the litter bending her head to get out of it and looking round curiously.

Rustan was not there, and in his place she saw a huge young negress with flaming red hair and rolling eyes, who roughly ordered the porters to take away the palanquin and at the same time caught Zoë's wrist, whether to help her to stand upright or to secure her person it was hard to say. The girl was much more fearless than Omobono, the Venetian secretary, and she was not frightened by the gigantic woman's appearance, as he had been. In getting out she had managed to gather the cloak round her, so that the men should not see her in her rags; for there was light in the large room where she found herself, and now that she could look about her she saw a dozen or more girls and young women standing in small groups a few paces behind the negress. They surveyed the new arrival curiously, but with different expressions. Some seemed to pity her, others smiled as if to welcome her; one good-looking girl had noticed that she had no shoes, and her lip curled contemptuously at such a proof of abject poverty, for she herself was the daughter of a prosperous Caucasian horse-thief who had brought her up in plenty and ease in order that she might fetch a high price. The bearers had now left the room and there were no men present. Zoë vaguely wished that they would come back, even the black bearers of the litter, for she felt a very womanly woman's distrust of her own sex, where so many who were strangers, and possibly not well-disposed to her, were gathered together to look at her.

The negress surveyed her critically by the light of the large bronze lamp that stood on a stand beside her, and showed her sharp teeth in an approving smile that made her thick upper lip roll upwards on itself. She took the cloak from Zoë's shoulders and scrutinised her half-clad figure, till she blushed red. Then the daughter of the Caucasian horse-thief laughed rudely, and some of the others tittered while the negress gently pinched Zoë's bare arms and neck to judge of their firmness and of her general condition. Apparently the examination was tolerably satisfactory, for the woman nodded and grinned again. As yet not a word had been spoken since she had dismissed the bearers, but now she turned towards the other girls and called two of them.

'Lucilla and Yulia, you shall wait on her,' she said in Greek. 'The rest of you, to bed! It is already three hours of the night.'