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The fathers point out Stambul to their sons, they point it out as the booty that will give them sustenance; tender women lay their hands upon the sword to use it against the Osmanli, and will fight like heroes. Yet the days of the Sons of the Prophet will not yet come to an end; they will resist the enemy, and stand fast like a Salamander in the midst of the burning embers.
When day dawns we are in Turkey, and the sun is high when the train comes to a standstill in Constantinople. From the highest platform of the lofty tower which rises from the square in the centre of the promontory of Stambul a wonderful view can be obtained of the city and its surroundings a singular blending of great masses of houses and glittering sheets of blue water.
These are no good omens, oh, my master! and if thou wilt lend thine ears to the counsel of thy faithful servant, thou wilt proclaim a day of penance and fasting instead of a feast-day, for evil days are coming upon Stambul.
Well did he remember the message which, three-and-twenty years before, the host had sent to his predecessor, Sultan Mustafa, who would not quit his harem at Adrianople to come to Stambul: "Even if thou wert dead thou couldst come here in a couple of days!" And he also remembered what had followed.
It is from thence we get our rulers and our treasurers, and if now and then Fate causes a hero to plump down among them he also grows black like a drop of water that has fallen upon soot; for the treasures, palaces, and odalisks of the fallen magnates are transferred to the new favourite, and ruin him as quickly and as completely as they ruined his predecessors; and so long as these palaces stand by the Sweet Waters more curses than prayers will be heard within the walls of Stambul, so that if ye want to save Stambul, ye must burn down these palaces, for as sure as God exists these palaces will consume Stambul."
In the third place the sultanate of Stambul had retained a vague but valuable prestige, based partly on past history, partly on its pretension to religious influence throughout a much larger area than its proper dominions; and the conservative population of the latter was in great measure very imperfectly informed of its sovereign's actual position.
Abdul Hamid did succeed in gaining the respectful acknowledgment of his spiritual authority by most Moslem princes and notables, and he certainly won the pious veneration of the Moslem masses. In the most distant regions men came to regard the mighty Caliph in Stambul as, in very truth, the Defender of the Faith, and to consider his empire as the bulwark of Islam.
The wind is fresh, so they pull in their oars and hoist the sail, and the boat glides southward at a rapid pace. But Fatima is capricious, and is soon tired of the Sea of Marmora, and orders the men to steer to the nearest quay in Stambul. She gives them two silver coins, which they take without a word of thanks or civility.
The last rays of sunset were about to depart from the minarets of Stambul. The imposing shape of the City of the Seven Hills loomed forth like a majestic picture in the evening light.
The watchers placed on the roof of the palace signified that the bivouac fires of the insurgents were now much nearer than they had been the night before, and that in the direction of Scutari not a single watch-fire was visible, from which it might be suspected that the army had broken up its camp, returned to Stambul, and made common cause with the insurgents.
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