How one realized the vicinity of Constantinople! On all sides there was an unwonted gayety, and the faces lit up by the ship’s lights were all happy ones. The group of children skipped around their mother shouting the ancient Russian name of Stambul: “Zavegorod! Zavegorod!” Passing near one and another of the little groups, I caught the names of Galata, Pera, Skutari, Bujukdere, Terapia, which acted upon my excited brain like stray sparks from the preliminaries of some grand display of fireworks. Even the sailors were delighted to be nearing a place where, as they said, one forgets, if only for a single hour, all the troubles of life. Among the white turbans in the bow as well there were unusual signs of life: the imaginations of even those sluggish and impassive Mussulmen were stirred as there began to float before their minds the magic outlines of Ummelunia, “Mother of the World”—that city, as says the Koran, “which commands on one side the earth, and on two, the sea.” It seemed as though, had the engine been stopped, the ship must still have gone on, impelled forward by the sheer force of that impatient longing which throbbed and palpitated from her decks. From time to time, as I leaned over the side and looked down at the water, a hundred different voices seemed to mingle with the murmur of the waves—the voices of all those who cared for me. “Go,” they said, “son, brother, friend! Go and enjoy your Constantinople. You have well earned it; now enjoy yourself, and God be with you!”
It was midnight before the passengers began to disperse, my friend and I being the last to go, and then with lingering steps. We could not bear to shut up between four walls an exuberance of joy as compared with which the Circle of Propontis seemed narrow and contracted. Halfway down the stair we heard the captain’s voice inviting us to come on the bridge the next morning. “Be up before sunrise,” he cried, appearing at the top of the companion-way; “whoever is late will be thrown overboard.”
A more superfluous threat was never made since the world began. I did not close my eyes, and I don’t believe that the youthful Muhammad II. on that famous night of Adrianople when he tore his bed to pieces, agitated by visions of Constantine’s city, tossed and turned more than did I throughout those four hours of expectation. In order to quiet my nerves I tried counting up to a thousand, keeping my eyes fixed on the line of white spray thrown up against my port by the movement of the vessel, humming monotonous tunes set to the throbbing of the engine, but all in vain. I was hot and feverish, my breath was labored, and the night seemed endless. At the first glimmer of dawn I leaped out of bed, to find Yunk already up; we tore into our clothes, and in three bounds were on deck.
Despair! It was foggy.
A thick, impenetrable mist concealed the horizon on every side, and it looked like rain; so the great spectacle of the approach to Constantinople was lost, all our hopes dashed, the voyage, in short, a failure. I was completely stunned.
At this moment the captain appeared, wearing his accustomed cheerful smile. Explanations were unnecessary. The instant his eye fell on us he took in the situation, and, patting me on the shoulder, said, consolingly, “That will be all right; don’t give yourselves the slightest concern. This fog, for which you ought to be very thankful, will help us to make the most glorious entrance into Constantinople one could possibly desire. In two hours, you may take my word for it, the sky will be absolutely clear.” At these brave words my blood began to circulate freely again, and we followed him to the bridge.
The Turks were already assembled in the bow, seated cross-legged upon strips of carpet, with their faces turned toward Constantinople. Presently the other passengers began to appear, armed with glasses of all sizes and styles, and took their places, one after another, along the port rail of the vessel, like people in the gallery of a theatre waiting for the curtain to rise. A fresh breeze was blowing; no one spoke, but gradually every glass was levelled upon the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora, where, as yet, nothing could be seen.
The fog, however, had lifted so rapidly that it was now little more than a filmy veil hanging over the horizon, while above it the heavens shone out clear and resplendent. Directly ahead of us could be seen indistinctly the little archipelago of the three Isles of the Princes, the Demonesi of the ancients, and the favorite pleasure-grounds of the court in the time of the Byzantine Empire, now a popular resort and place of amusement for the people of Constantinople.
Both shores of the Sea of Marmora were still completely hidden.
It was not until an hour had gone by that at last there appeared——