As I write I can see the badge of my former slavery where it hangs around a little old Byzantine icon in my room. I have never been separated from it. During the whole of my girlhood I wore it; and when I was in a convent school in Paris it gave me a certain distinction among my mystified companions, who could hear it tinkle whenever I moved.
Asked about it, I only said that it was the badge of my slavery. This gave rise to a variety of stories, invented by their Gallic imaginations, in which I, with my bell, was the heroine.
As I look at it now, it reminds me of the three days spent with St George—the three days during which sensuous mysticism completely clouded my awakening intelligence.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MASTER OF THE FOREST
ON our return from the monastery we had the great joy of finding my brother at home, back that very day from Europe. I was so delighted I could hardly sit still. My happiness was dashed to the ground, when, in the course of the next half hour, he remarked that he must leave us in a few days to see the Bishop of Xanthy. I was speechless with disappointment until my mother said:
“Oh! that is lucky. The little one needs a complete change to become quite herself again. She can go with you.”
Thus it was quickly settled, and a few days later we set off. The first part of the journey was like any other. We went to Constantinople and took a train, which, after due deliberation, started, and in due time again—or rather, not in due time—reached Koumourtzina. There began what seemed to me our real journey, for we were now to travel entirely on animal-back.
We started on mules, in the afternoon, and rode for three hours at a smart trot. In front of us lay the forest of Koumourtzina. Geography has always been a closed science to me, so I have no idea where this is, except that it is somewhere in Turkish territory, and on the way to Xanthy.
It was near nightfall. We took a short rest at a small village, ate a hearty meal, exchanged the mules we had been riding for horses, and started out to cross the forest. There was a silvery moonlight over all the landscape, and the lantern which our guide carried, as he walked in front of the horses, blinded us more than it helped us. We asked to have the light put out, but the kouroudji, who was also the owner of the horses we were riding, insisted on the lighted lantern as part of the convention of the forest.