the mutessarif and his lieutenant came down to permit us to leave. There
were cigarettes and salutes, the secretary scribbled in Turkish
characters on his knee, the governor signed the permit, and we said
good-by to Gallipoli. Next morning we again threaded the shipping in
the Golden Horn.

The ten policemen who had looked so formidable a week before, expressed
a wish for what was left of the tinned corned beef. And with hackmen
yelling from the street and caique men shouting from the water, the
fifty hostages were swallowed up in the sunshine and smells and clatter
of Constantinople.




Chapter XI

With The Turks At The Dardanelles



The little side-wheeler--she had been built in Glasgow in 1892, and done
duty as a Bosporus ferry-boat until the war began--was supposed to sail
at four, but night shut down and she still lay at the wharf in Stamboul.
We contrived to get some black bread, hard-boiled eggs, oranges, and
helva from one of the little hole-in-the-wall shops near by, watched
Pera and its ascending roofs turn to purple, and the purple to gray and
black, until Constantinople was but a string of lights across Galata
Bridge, and a lamp here and there on the hills. Then, toward midnight,
with lights doused and life-belts strung along the rail--for English