He had gone so far as once to say in response to the Sultan, who twitted him for being in love, that he imagined such to be the case, and only needed the choice of His Majesty to locate the passion. But he did not dare to be more specific, lest he might run across some caprice of the Sultan; for he felt sure that so beautiful an odalisk as his captive would not long be without the royal attention.
Old Kala Hanoum's information regarding the fair odalisk allayed the turmoil in Ballaban's breast, in that it gave certainty to his former suspicions. For her words about the stars above the Balkans, the snows of Slatiza, and Elizabeth Morsiney, were not accidental. He had no doubt that the Albanian odalisk was the little lady to whom he once made love in the bowers of blackberry bushes, and vowed to defend like a true knight, waving his wooden sword over the head of the goat he rode as a steed. In the midst of such thoughts and emotions, Captain Ballaban awoke to full self-consciousness, and said to himself——
"I am in love! But I am a fool! For a man with ambition must never be in love, except with himself. Besides, this woman I love is perhaps half in my imagination; for I never yet caught a full view of her face. As for her being my little Morsinia—Illusion! No! this is no illusion! But what if she be the same! Captain Ballaban, are you going to be a soldier, or a lover? Take your choice; for you can't be both, at least not an Ottoman soldier and a lover of a Christian girl."
Rubbing his hand through his red hair, as if to pull out these fantasies, he strode down to the water's edge, and, tossing a Kaikji a few piasters, was in a moment darting like an arrow across the harbor;—a customary way the captain had of getting rid of any vexation. The cool evening breeze wooed the over-thoughtfulness from his brain, or he spurted it out through his muscles into the oar blades, which dropped it into the water of oblivion.
He was scarcely aware that he was becoming more tranquil, when a quick cry of a boat keeper showed that he had almost run down the old tower of white marble which rises from a rocky islet, just away from the mainland on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus.
"Kiss-Koulessi, the Maiden's Tower, this," he muttered. "Well, I have fled from the fortress of one maiden to run against that of another. Fate is against me. Perhaps I had better submit. Why not? Wasn't Charis a valiant general of the old Greeks, who sent him here, once on a time, to help the Byzantines? Well! He had a wife, the fair Boiidion, the 'heifer-eyed maiden.' And here she lies beneath this tower. The world would have forgotten General Charis, but for his wife Damalis, whom they have remembered these two thousand years. A wife may be the making of a man's fame. If the Sultan would give me my pick of the odalisks I think I would venture."
These thoughts were not interrupted, only supplemented, by the sun's rays, now nearly horizontal, as striking the water far up the harbor of Stamboul, they poured over it and made it seem indeed a Golden Horn, the open end of which extended into the Bosphorus. The ruddy glow tipped the dome of St. Sophia as with fire; transformed the gray walls of the Genoese tower at Galata into a huge porphyry column, sparkling with a million crystals; and made the white marble of the Maiden's Tower blush like the neck of a living maiden, when kissed for the first time by the hot lips of her lover.
So the Captain thought: and was reminded to inspect the silken treasure he had purchased. He would look through the phials, as—who knows—he might see the face of her who sent them. If looking at the red orb of the sun, just for an instant, made his eyes see a hundred sombre suns dancing along the sky, it would not be strange if his long meditation upon a certain radiant maiden should enable him to see her, at least in one shadowy reproduction of his inner vision.
He drew the silken case from his pocket. It was wrought with real skill, and worth the lira, even if it had contained nothing, and meant nothing. The little phials were held up one by one, and divided the sun's beams into prismatic hues as they passed through the twisted glass. In each was a drop or two of sweet essence, like an imprisoned soul, waiting to be released, that it might fly far and wide and distill its perfume as a secret blessing.
"But this one is imperfect," muttered the Captain, as he held up a phial that was nearly opaque. It was larger than the others, and contained a tightly wrapped piece of paper. "The clue!" said he, and, after a moment's hesitation, broke the phial. Unwinding the paper, he read: