Captain Ballaban was almost constantly engaged at the new seraglio. It was being constructed not only with an eye to its imposing appearance from without and its beauty within, such as befitted both its splendid site between the waters and the splendor of the monarch whose palace it was to be; but also with a view to its easy defence in case of assault. Upon the young officer devolved the duty of scrutinizing every line and layer that went into the various structures.
He was especially interested in the side entrances, and communications between the various departments of the seraglio. He gave orders for a change to be made in the line of a partition and corridor, and also for a slight variation in the position of a gateway in the walls dividing the mabeyn[102] court from that of the haremlik. Just why these changes were made, perhaps the architects themselves could not have told; nor were they interested to enquire, supposing that they were made at the royal will. Ballaban was disposed to indulge a little his own fancy. If there was to be a broad entrance for public display, and then a narrow passage for the Sultan only, why not have a way through which he could imagine a fair odalisk fleeing from insult and torture into the arms of—himself? But Ballaban's face grew pale as he watched the completion of a sluice way leading from a little chamber, down through the sea wall, to meet the rapid current of the Bosphorus. He remembered the declaration of the Padishah, that, if ever an odalisk were unfaithful to him, she should be sewn into a bag, together with a cat and a snake, and drowned in Marmora.[103]
In the meantime old Kala Hanoum was amazed at the number of articles of Morsinia's handiwork she was able to induce the young captain to purchase. Indeed, he never refused. And quite frequently she was the bearer of gifts, generally confections, sometimes little rolls of silk suitable for embroidery with colored threads or beads, accompanied by the name of some fellow officer of the Janizaries from whom apparently an order for work was given; the Captain acting as an agent in a sort of co-partnership with Kala. Of course this was only secret mail service between Ballaban and the odalisk. If Kala suspected it, her commissions were so largely remunerative that she silenced the thought of any thing but legitimate business.
Ballaban devised plans for her escape which Morsinia found it impracticable to execute from her side of the harem wall; and her shrewdest suggestions were pronounced equally unsafe by the strategist without. Ballaban had caught glimpses of Morsinia while loitering among the trees at the upper end of the Golden Horn, by the Sweet Waters, where the ladies of the harem were taken by the eunuchs on almost weekly excursions. He had proposed to have in readiness two horses, that, if she should break from the attendants, they might flee together. But before this could be accomplished, the excursions were discontinued, as the attention of all was turned to a new pleasure.
The grand haremlik was at length completed. Perhaps no place on earth was so suggestive of indolent and sensual pleasure as this. There were luxurious divans, multiplying mirrors, baths of tempered water, fountains in which perfumes could be scattered with the spray, broad spaces for the dance, half hidden alcoves for the indulgence in that which shamed the more public eye, and gardens in which Araby competed with Africa in the display of exotic fruits and flowers.
A day was set for the reception of the grand harem from Adrianople—which contained nearly a thousand of the most beautiful women in the world—into this new paradise. The Kislar Aga had arranged a pageant of especial magnificence, which could be witnessed by the people at a distance. Two score barges, elegantly decorated, rowed by eunuchs, their decks covered with divans, were to receive the odalisks from Adrianople at the extreme inner point of the seraglio water front on the Golden Horn. The Validé Sultana's barge was to lead the procession, which should float to the cadences of music far out into the harbor. At the same time, the Sultan in his kaik, and the women of the temporary haremlik, each propelling a light skiff decorated with flags and streamers, were to move from the extreme outer point of the seraglio grounds, until the two fleets should meet, when, amid salvos of artillery from the shores, the odalisks with the Sultan were to turn about and lead their sisters to the water gate of the haremlik. Orders were given forbidding the people to appear upon the water, or upon the shores within distance to see distinctly the faces of the ladies of the harem.
Every evening at sundown a patrol of eunuchs made a cordon of boats a few hundred yards from the shore, within which, screened by distance from the eyes of common men, the odalisks went into training for the great regatta. The Padishah, sitting in his barge, encouraged their rivalry by gifts for dexterity in managing the little boats, for picturesqueness of dress and for grace of movement, as with bared arms and streaming tresses, they propelled the kaiks.
Morsinia found herself one of the most dexterous in handling the oars. The free life of her childhood on the Balkans and among the peasants of upper Albania, had developed muscle which this new exercise soon brought into unusual efficiency. She observed that the attendant eunuchs were deficient in this kind of strength, and had no doubt that, with her own light weight, she could drive the almost imponderable kaik swifter than any of them.
The young Egyptian woman was her only competitor for the honor of leading the fleet on the day of the regatta. To add to the interest of the training, Mahomet ordered that the two should race for the honor of being High Admiral of the harem fleet; and one evening announced that the competitive trial should take place the next afternoon. The course was fixed for a half mile, just inside of Seraglio Point, where the waters of the harbor are still, unvexed by the rapid current which pours along the channel of the Bosphorus. The flag-boat was to be anchored almost at the meeting of the inner and outer waters.
That night Morsinia wrote a note containing these words—