The sun had set now and the aspect of the sea and land was magnificent.
Throned in the eastern heavens, the soft and silver moon was in all her clearest splendour. The studded belt of Orion and the constellation of the Scorpion united with her in filling the wide blue vault of night with lustre, and all the waves of Marmora seemed to be tipped with blue fire and to be rolling in liquid light.
Built on the slope of a hill, the terraced houses of Selyvria were irregular, quaint, and queer, like those of all Turkish towns, and they rose above each other like the seats of an amphitheatre. The hill was green, and on its summit rose a fortress of the Greek Empire—old, say some, as the days of Selys, who founded the city. The lower, or Turkish town, is without enclosure, though an embattled wall connects the outer row of houses, above which rise the domes of its khan and several mosques.
On leaving the town we were conducted along an ancient bridge of about forty arches, the shadows of which were thrown by the moonlight far across the salt sea-marsh, over which it is built. Thence proceeding by a part of the paved road that leads to Stamboul, and is formed of blocks of basalt, we found ourselves beneath the walls of a grim and dilapidated castle, which stands close to the sea-shore. On one hand the waves of the Propontis lay rolling in shining ripples on the yellow beach, and inland, on the other, spread a wilderness of wild vines and cherry-trees, with massive Grecian columns, tottering or prostrate among them, and beyond these a spacious burial-place, with all its shadowy, huge, and solemn cypresses, standing like a rank of giant spectres in the brilliant moonlight.
Above our heads towered the black parapets, the peering cannon, and the red-capped sentinels of the Turkish castle. Then the wild and strange voices of the Osmanli soldiers were heard, as the Onbashi of the Bostandgis conferred with the Mulazim who commanded the guard; the heavy doors were opened, and as we entered a cold and dark archway, we heard the chink of bolt and bar and swinging-chain, as the barrier was secured behind us; and then the ropes were untied from our almost powerless hands—an inexpressible relief!
'Dioul!' muttered Callum, with a shrug of his shoulders, 'we were better at home in desolate Glen Ora, even under Snaggs the factor, than here.'
Before I could reply, we were pushed through a side door, and thrust down a flight of steep and slimy steps, into a hot, close, and noisome place, where the sights, sounds, odours, and horrors that awaited us, require an entire chapter to themselves.
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE BAGNIO.
'Truth is strange—stranger than fiction.'