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They counted the garrison; it was impossible that it should be relieved; each sally was a victory; for, even when the Turks were triumphant, the loss of men they sustained was an irreparable injury. Still the same lofty domes and minarets towered above the verdurous walls, where Constantine had died, and the Turk had entered the city.
"Did you ever see such colour, Boris?" "Over the minarets it is like a great wound," he answered. "No wonder men are careless of human life in such a land as this. All the wildness of the world seems to be concentrated here. Amara is like the desert city of some tremendous dream. It looks wicked and unearthly, but how superb!" "Look at those cupolas!" he said.
We are in the religious East of olden days and we feel how the mystery of this magnificent court whose architectural ornament consists merely in geometrical designs repeated to infinity, and does not commence till quite high up on the battlements, where the minarets point into the eternal blue must cast its spell upon the imagination of the young priests who are being trained here.
We passed through an interesting country, filled with wind-carven pillars and minarets, eroded shelves and caverns, and lunched at noonday beside a dozen boiling sulphur springs. We also passed Cañoncito, the little village which was the home of José Cordova. As we came in sight of the tinned spires of the church at Jemez, we heard a distinct murmur, and halted at once.
I remember specially one evening, at sunset, just before I had to go to the chapel, that a sort of awe came upon me as I looked across the lakes. The sky was golden, the waters were dyed with gold, out of which rose the white sails of boats. The mountains were shadowy purple. The little minarets of the mosques rose into the gold like sticks of ivory.
They seemed curious as to our dress and appearance, but not apparently hostile. We walked on to the low line of the monastery with its pyramidal roof and its queer, flower-vase minarets. After a moment's discussion they ushered us into the temple or chapel, which was evidently also their communal council-room and place of deliberation. We entered, trembling.
All the same, it was a great sight, with its minarets and towers, its Golden Horn and crowded quays. Our dragoman kept at bay all the clamouring crowd of porters, guides and nondescripts of all colours and races that besieged us. It was 8.30 a.m. when we landed, but 3.30 p.m. by Turkish time.
Godwin and Wulf, seated in the shade of the painted house, watched them gloomily. They were weary of this ever-changing sameness, weary of the eternal glare and glitter of this unfamiliar life, weary of the insistent cries of the mullahs on the minarets, of the flash of the swords that would soon be red with the blood of their own people; weary, too, of the hopeless task to which they were sworn.
From the top of the hill we had a grand view, looking back over the plain, with the long line of Brousa's minarets glittering through the interminable groves at the foot of the mountain Olympus now showed a superb outline; the clouds hung about his shoulders, but his snowy head was bare. Before us lay a broad, rich valley, extending in front to the mountains of Moudania.
Up the canyon rose far hills and peaks, the big foothills, pine-covered and remote. And far beyond, like clouds upon the border of the sky, towered minarets of white, where the Sierra's eternal snows flashed austerely the blazes of the sun. There was no dust in the canyon. The leaves and flowers were clean and virginal. The grass was young velvet.
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