Occasionally we heard a shrill cry or the barking of
dogs, but these sounds came faintly, and seemed a part of the
fairy-picture. It looked so much like a scene from an opera that I
half expected to see the curtain go down and the lights flare up, and
I feared the applause which always spoils the dream.
But nothing spoiled this dream. All night we lay in the beautiful
Bosphorus, and all night at intervals I looked out of my porthole at
that lovely sleeping princess. It never grew any less lovely. Its
beauty and charm increased.
But in the morning everything was changed. A band of howling,
screaming, roaring, fighting pirates came alongside in dirty
row-boats, and to our utter consternation we found these bloodthirsty
brigands were to row us to land. Not one word could we understand in
all that fearful uproar. We were watching them in a terror too abject
to describe, when, to our joy, an English voice said, "I am the guide
for the two American ladies, and here is the kavass which the American
minister sent down to meet you. The consul at Odessa cabled your
arrival.
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