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As I was English they believed that the Turks would be obliged to permit me to travel further if I pleased. But they implored me on no account if I went further afield, to take the train as all the railways were shortly to be blown up. Meanwhile the Turkish authorities could not decide what to do about me and called me to the Konak about my passport. There I waited hours.
The walls of the palace of Prince Eugene are still standing complete, but the court-yard is filled up with rubbish, at least six feet high, and what were formerly the rooms of the ground-floor have become almost cellars. The edifice is called to this day, "Princeps Konak."
I will not go so far as to say the glances they cast at us were absolutely friendly, but they were perfectly well behaved. We climbed up numerous staircases to the pasha's house or Konak, and were shown into a huge apartment that was almostlike the open air, with large windows looking on the sea, which admitted a cool refreshing breeze.
They passed without unveiling across the point where the slaves were at work, and all were forbidden on pain of death to look up, or even to approach the konak or pavilion, where the ladies threw aside their veils, and enjoyed the scent and sight of the flowers, the splash of murmuring waters, and the strains of music touched by skilful hands.
The pasha declined my offer, and I forbade any one in the house to go to the konak for examination. I then appeared before the kaimakam and demanded the evidence on which my house was accused. There was none except that of the surgeon, who was a Catholic, and a bigoted enemy of the Greeks, and especially of the dragoman, with whom he had had litigation.
Attention is drawn to it now by the fact that King Michael was found dead in his apartments at an early hour yesterday morning, and it is rumored that he was poisoned." "How dreadful!" she gasped. "It will shock your mother terribly when she hears of it." "It is an odd feature of the affair," went on Alec, "that the telegram describes the King as residing in the New Konak.
Alas! what could the poor Chepdji do! He wept in impotent despair, as he counted the number of years he must yet work before beholding his loved ones. One day, while moving the dirt from the Konak of a wealthy Pasha, his soul uttered a sigh which reached the ears of the Hanoum, and from the window she asked him why he sighed so deeply.
By that time I was wary and put them off by saying "The Prince of Wales!" I have often wondered how many of those suspicious and swaggering officers were among those who next year flung the yet palpitating bodies of Alexander and Draga from the Konak windows while the Russian Minister looked on.
The Hanoum in the meantime gathered together a quantity of jewelry, to the value of several hundred pounds, and instructed her favorite and confidential slave to come with her to the Cadi and remain outside whilst she went in, directing her that when she saw the Chepdji come out and learned that he had gotten his money, to come in the Cadi's room hurriedly and say to her, "your husband has arrived from Egypt, and is waiting for you at the Konak."
I am minded to throw sentiment aside and send my mother and you to the New Konak to-day." "I am quite well," she said, with a forced composure that she felt did not deceive him. It was necessary to invent some explanation, and she continued hurriedly, "I did not sleep soundly last night.
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