wretched district and the sea. Even the little river vanished beneath its walls, as though it, too, were flowing into captivity through the low arched opening guarded with thick iron bars.
But when she tried to explain this gloomy impression of hers, remarking that it was sad to see the Nightingale River ending in a cage, her companion only laughed again.
'We aren't mad!' she exclaimed. 'Of course we've sealed the valley off from the Golden Horn! None of our sultans wants to see another invader repeating Mehmet the Great's exploit.'
And she described with pride how, in the spring of 1433, the Sultan Mehmet II, in his determination to reduce the city of Byzantium by sea as well as by land, had had his fleet carried over the hill of Pera with the aid of a slipway made of planks of wood greased with mutton fat and lard. Having been hauled up to the head of the valley by a system of rollers and pulleys, the ships had gone swooping down through Kassim Pasha and into the Golden Horn, to the terror of the besieged.
'We have been careful to take precautions,' Bulut finished. 'It never does to give one's enemies ideas.'
In the meanwhile, the araba had come to a halt before a carved cedarwood door opening into a garden wall. Underneath a thick coat of dust could be seen a lot of rather primitive designs of flowers and leaves, above which hung a small bronze doorknocker which Bulut Hanum was already working with an impatient hand. The door was opened almost at once.
A servant girl in a saffron robe stood there bowing deeply. The many scents of the garden leaped to meet them, filling their nostrils as though they had each been handed a bouquet of flowers. The sharp tang of the cypress trees mingled with the sweetness of the jasmine, and the fragrance of fruiting orange trees with that of dying roses and clove pinks, and there were other, less easily identifiable scents.
It was a garden full of contrasts. The rampant jungle growth of the roses contrasted with the neat, well- ordered beds, marked out with box, which were the domain of the medicinal plants. Herbs both beneficent and deadly grew there thickly, around a semicircular pool into which a trickle of water splashed endlessly from between the worn jaws of an antique stone lion.
The maidservant, still bowing obsequiously, trotted before them toward the house which, although somewhat less dilapidated than its neighbors, forfeited all this slight advantage by an architecture so improbable that Marianne could not restrain a grimace of distaste. The thought of spending as much as twenty-four hours in this nightmare of wood and stone depressed her unutterably. It was made up of a weird juxtaposition of brick and carved wood, interspersed with panels of Brusa tiles decorated with fabulous monsters, the whole surmounted by an astonishing assortment of turrets, balconies and onion domes. Bulut Hanum, however, was evidently well accustomed to the oddness of it, for without abating one jot of the dignity due to a friend of the Valideh she directed her well-rounded person to a brassbound door beneath a flattened arch and passed inside.
Marianne followed her through a tiny entrance hall and found herself on the threshold of a large room, dimly lighted by a bronze lantern hung on long chains from the ceiling, from which came a number of little, flickering flames. Below it stood a tall woman who bowed as they entered but did not speak. Nor was there the smallest hint of obsequiousness in her bow. She bowed and that was all. Marianne stared at her in amazement.
Without quite knowing why, she had been expecting a short, fat, oily creature, not unlike the secondhand clothes dealers who were to be seen about the Temple in Paris. The woman who stood calmly and silently observing her could not have been more different.
Rebecca's face, framed in the gold-embroidered headdress worn by Jewish women, was the color of ivory and set in it was a pair of large, black and singularly penetrating eyes. A hooked nose and a mouth rather too heavy could not rob her of a degree of beauty which was derived chiefly from the very real intelligence of her expression.
Marianne's uneasiness increased as she took her seat automatically on the low divan that Rebecca waved her to. She felt a fluttering inside her that presaged the onset of an inexplicable sense of panic. She felt that she was threatened by some danger against which there was no possible defense and she forced herself to fight it while Bulut Hanum made the first move in the conversation, for it was surely ridiculous. What had she to fear from this quiet and all in all rather distinguished-looking woman, when she had come here prepared to submit to the dubious practices of some dirty, evil-smelling crone? Where was her courage and her will to be done with the intolerable burden within her?
But the more she tried to reason herself out of it, the more insistent grew her fear. There was a buzzing in her ears, preventing her from hearing what Bulut was saying, and a mist before her eyes, blurring the outlines of the shelves of books and of pots and bottles of every size and shape which alternated with the panels of stamped leather on the walls. She gripped her icy hands together as hard as she could to fight off the nausea that was creeping over her and at the same time, paradoxically, a wild urge to run away…
A firm, warm hand slipped something between her cold fingers and she sensed that it was a glass.
'You are sick,' said a voice, and the deep musical tone of it surprised her, 'but more than that, you are afraid. Drink and you will feel better. It is sage wine…'
Marianne put the cordial to her lips. It was sweet, strong and mild at once. She took a few cautious sips and then emptied the glass and handed it back with a grateful smile. Her surroundings had become clear again but so too, unfortunately, had Bulut's voice as she chattered on incessantly with expressions of sympathy and compassion for the French princess's obviously exhausted nerves.
Rebecca stood beside her, studying Marianne. Suddenly she smiled.
'The noble lady is right. You had better rest for a while before I make my first examination. Lie back on those cushions and relax. We will go into the next room for a moment while we decide what is to be done. Meanwhile, try and tell yourself that no one here wishes you harm, quite the reverse. You have only friends here—more friends than you know. Trust us, and rest.'
Rebecca's voice had a strangely persuasive power and Marianne, soothed as by a miracle, did not even try to resist. She stretched herself out meekly on the silken cushions, from which came a scent of ambergris, and let comfort steal over her. Her body no longer felt heavy, and her fears of a moment ago had fled so far away that she could hardly believe they had been real. She watched Bulut Hanum's green
Before going out, Rebecca had opened the three small windows which lighted the big room during the day —no doubt just as feebly as the bronze lamp was doing now. But they let in the scents of the garden, and Marianne breathed them in with deep delight. They spoke to her of the earth, of life and all the quiet happiness that she had been seeking for and never found. Could it be that this frightful house was after all the harbor and refuge where all her troubles would melt away and the chains fall from her at last? When she left it again she would be free, freer than she had ever been, relieved of all her fears and the threats hanging over her.
In place of the hanging lamp, extinguished by Rebecca so that her patient could rest more easily, a small oil lamp had been set on a low table at the foot of the divan. Marianne found herself fascinated by its tiny flame and the night-flying insects that were already being attracted to it. She looked kindly at the brave little flame, fighting gallantly against the surrounding darkness and driving it back.
The scents of the garden, the darkness and the slim, bright flame moving above the brass bowl of the lamp came together in Marianne's mind to form a symbolic portrait of her own life. But the flame especially seemed to her the embodiment of her own tenacious love and it held her eyes while the rest of her body melted formlessly into the insidious softness of the cushions. It was a long time, months even, since she had felt so comfortable.
Then, little by little, the wonderful feeling of well-being became a great languor. The eyes that watched the lamp closed very slowly—and then, just as she was on the point of sinking into sleep, Marianne saw a white shadow detach itself gradually from the darkness filling the greater part of the room.
It was like a ghost, draped in snowy white or veiled in smoke, which grew and grew until it filled all her vision—something huge and terrifying.
Marianne tried to cry out. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. It was as though she were already in the grip of a nightmare. She fought desperately to keep her eyelids open against the weight that was on them. And still the phantom went on growing. It was bending over her… She made a frantic effort to escape from the power of the drug that paralyzed her and to tear herself from her couch, but the deep cushions held her as if she had been welded to them. Then, softly, the shadow began to speak.
'Don't be afraid,' it said. 'I mean you no harm. Far from it. I am your friend and you have nothing to fear from me.'
