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Updated: May 1, 2025
Somebody had been putting a powder in the flames, for suddenly the place became very quiet. The fiddles still sounded, but far away like an echo. The lights went down, all but a circle on the stage, and into that circle stepped my enemy of the skin cap. He had three others with him. I heard a whisper behind me, and the words were those which Kuprasso had used the day before.
He paid no attention, so I shouted louder at him, and the noise brought a man out of the back parts. He was a fat, oldish fellow with a long nose, very like the Greek traders you see on the Zanzibar coast. I beckoned to him and he waddled forward, smiling oilily. Then I asked him what he would take, and he replied, in very halting German, that he would have a sirop. 'You are Mr Kuprasso, I said.
With some trouble I got an interview with the proprietor, the usual Greek, and told him that we had been sent there by Mr Kuprasso. That didn't affect him in the least, and we would have been shot into the street if I hadn't remembered about Stumm's pass. So I explained that we had come from Germany with munitions and only wanted rooms for one night.
We soon found the hotel to which Kuprasso had directed us, a big place in a courtyard with a very tumble-down-looking portico, and green sun-shutters which rattled drearily in the winter's wind. It proved, as I had feared, to be packed to the door, mostly with German officers.
'That lane runs down from the Kurdish Bazaar in Galata to the ferry of Ratchik. Half-way down on the left-hand side is a cafe kept by a Greek called Kuprasso. Behind the cafe is a garden, surrounded by high walls which were parts of the old Byzantine Theatre. At the end of the garden is a shanty called the Garden-house of Suliman the Red.
I hadn't a flicker of a thought of escape or resistance. The game was utterly and absolutely over. A man who seemed to be a sergeant pointed to us and said something to Kuprasso, who nodded. We got heavily to our feet and stumbled towards them. With one on each side of us we crossed the yard, walked through the dark passage and the empty shop, and out into the snowy street.
At last we stumbled on it a tumble-down coffee house, with A. Kuprasso above the door in queer amateur lettering. There was a lamp burning inside, and two or three men smoking at small wooden tables. We ordered coffee, thick black stuff like treacle, which Peter anathematized. A negro brought it, and I told him in German I wanted to speak to Mr Kuprasso.
Take the advice of Angelo Kuprasso and avoid the streets after nightfall. Stamboul is no safe place nowadays for quiet men. I asked him to name a hotel, and he rattled off a list from which I chose one that sounded modest and in keeping with our get-up. It was not far off, only a hundred yards to the right at the top of the hill. When we left his door the night had begun to drop.
But at the door stood men in uniform, I heard a German a long way off murmur, 'Enver's bodyguards, and I heard him distinctly; for, though I could not see clearly, my hearing was desperately acute. That is often the way when you suddenly come out of a swoon. The place emptied like magic. Turk and German tumbled over each other, while Kuprasso wailed and wept.
Its windows and skylights were black with dirt, and its door, tied up with rope, flapped in the wind. 'Behold the Pavilion, Kuprasso said proudly. 'That is the old place, I observed with feeling. 'What times I've seen there! Tell me, Mr Kuprasso, do you ever open it now? He put his thick lips to my ear. 'If the Signor will be silent I will tell him. It is sometimes open not often.
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