THE HOUSE IN SOKAKI MASYERI
Until we crossed its very threshold the spell of the city held us.
Not even the noisome belt of Russian refugee camps and tawdry villas
and the unkempt tombs of the Hills of the Dead could shatter the
illusion of that splendid skyline. The nearer we approached, the
more impressive it became. The long gray line of the old Byzantine
walls, the uneven lift of the roofs staggering up and down its seven
hills, the swelling domes of mosque and basilica, the slender beauty
of countless minarets, the faultless contour of cypress groves and
the far blue gleam of the Golden Horn and the Marmora, with the dim
background of the Asiatic hills, all combined to mold a picture of
piercing loveliness.
But when we passed through the echoing arch of the Adrianople Gate
the spell was broken. Crazy houses toppled over the filth of the
streets; a dense mass of unwashed humans eddied to and fro; squalor
beggaring description leered from the steep lanes and alleys that
branched off from the main streets. A hundred races swarmed about
us, vying with one another in wretchedness and misery. Dogs and
flies fought in the gutters with children and old people. Beggars
whined for baksheesh. Food venders yelled their cries and hawked
their unsanitary wares. Every kind of clothing appeared, from greasy
European dress to the quaint peasant costumes of south-eastern Europe
and Anatolia and all the countries eastwards to the Hindoo Koosh.
It was like one's fancies of the Arabian Nights, and yet unlike them.
For here was no lavishness of Oriental display, no exotic
magnificence, only suffering and want and hunger and disease and
smells and a dreadful ugliness that was spiritual as well as
physical. It was as if a gigantic, cancerous sore, festering and
gangrened through the centuries, had eaten away the vitality of what
had once been the richest city in the world. And back and forth in
that swarm of humanity's dregs wandered men of the civilization which
had prospered outside the pale of Islam, French and British officers,
bluejackets, poilus, tommies and an occasional tourist, clinging to a
smirking guide.
Nikka, riding beside me, viewed the spectacle with cynical detachment.
"Seven hundred years ago," he said, "this was incomparably the
stateliest, most powerful city in Christendom. It was the center of
an Empire that was still able to stand alone, although it had borne
the burden of resisting the Moslem attacks on the Western world for
more than five hundred years. It enshrined all that was best and
most worthy of the ancient Greek and Roman culture. It had a million
inhabitants. It had public services, schools, posts, police, drains,
water supply. Life was safe, commercial independence and prosperity
assured--which was more than could be said for any other community,
East or West."
"And the Turks made it what it is!" I exclaimed, as Wasso Mikali,
leading our little procession, turned off the main street we had been
following into one of the stinking, littered lanes that twisted down
into shadowy regions of corruption.
"Not the Turks! The Turks only finished what others had begun. No,
the beginning of what you see around you was made by Hugh's ancestor
and his brother knights of the Fourth Crusade, who, instead of
fulfilling their vows to journey to the Holy Land, voyaged to
Constantinople and overpowered the feeble Emperor of that day, and
then sacked and wrecked the city. It was never the same afterward.
It never recovered its strength. And when the Crusades finally
impelled the concentration of the Moslem power, it became only a
question of time before the city must fall. Had it not been for
those walls we just passed, it would have fallen a century before it
did. In fact, it fell then mainly because there were not enough men
to hold the defenses."
"What you say is interesting," I said. "For after all, we are coming
to-day on Hugh's behalf for pretty much the same object as lured his
ancestor. We are hunting the treasure of the city."
"But we shall do no harm to any one by taking the treasure," returned
Nikka. "What use would it be to these people around us? Would they
share it? Never! It would be employed for the pleasures of their
masters. The only way to redeem Constantinople is to repopulate."
We plunged deeper and deeper into the dark byways, sometimes
traversing streets so narrow that pedestrians were compelled to
squeeze themselves flat against the house-walls to permit us to pass.
In the twilight it was difficult to see far ahead, and at every
corner Wasso Mikali raised his voice in a shout of warning. But at
last we rode forth into a wider thoroughfare and stopped opposite the
gate of a huge, fortress-like building, whose windowless stone walls
towered above the surrounding housetops.
"The Khan of the Georgians," explained Nikka. "Here we shall be
swallowed up in an army of travelers. No one would think of looking
for us in such a place."
Wasso Mikali made the necessary payment to the porter at the gate,
and we rode between the ponderous, steel-bound doors into a courtyard
such as you find in a barracks. Around it rose three tiers of
galleries, arched in stone, and below them were a succession of
stables fronted by sheds and penthouses. Piles of goods lay
everywhere, in the courtyard and on the galleries. Horses, mules,
oxen and camels neighed, brayed, bellowed and grunted. Men talked in
knots on the mucky cobbles of the court, squatted in every gallery or
leaned over the railings shouting to each other. Women sat on bales
and nursed their infants. Children ran about with the usual ability
of children to escape sudden death in dangerous places. It sounded
like a boiler factory and an insane asylum holding a jubilee
convention.
But Wasso Mikali and his young men pushed through the confusion with
the same bored air I would have worn in bucking the subway rush, at
Grand Central. They appropriated a corner of a stable, and put up
the horses, uncinched the packs and climbed a flight of stone stairs
to the second floor, where the old Gypsy rented two cubicles, each
lighted by a grated window two feet square and containing nothing
except some foul straw, from a custodian who looked like the
conception of Noah entertained by the artists of the subscription
editions of the Holy Bible.
Nikka had relapsed so thoroughly to Gypsyism that he professed not to
be suspicious of the straw, but at my insistance he procured a worn
broom from Father Noah and we swept out the room which had been set
aside for Wasso Mikali and ourselves. The six retainers in Wasso's
train were given the next cubicle, and they promptly piled into it
the straw which we had banished from our room, so I doubt whether our
labors produced any benefit, as they spent as much time with us as in
their own quarters.
Such food as we did not have with us we bought from a general store
conducted in an angle of the courtyard, and the cooking was done over
a brazier, which, with the necessary charcoal, we rented from Father
Noah. When night fell, and the cooking fires blazed out all over the
courtyard and in the galleries it was a sight worth coming to
Constantinople to see. There was an acrid reek of dung in the air,
the sweaty smell of human bodies, the pungent aroma of the charcoal,
and an endless babble of voices in a score of tongues and dialects.
Afterward some men on our gallery played on bagpipes. From the
courtyard came the twanging of simple stringed instruments, and nasal
voices lifted in interminable melancholy songs. A woman who was no
better than she should have been danced in the light of two flaring
kerosene torches by the gate until she won the attention of a
bandy-legged Turcoman rug-merchant. A thief attempted to pick the
purse of a fat Persian. A Kurdish horse-dealer tried to knife a
snarling Greek. And gradually the khan's inmates sought their sleep.
Most of them lay in the courtyard or stables beside their animals and
goods or else on the galleries. The snores of a score resounded into
our cubicle. Yet I slept, awakening at intervals of the night when a
child cried for the breast or a camel broke loose and threshed around
the courtyard or a party of belated travelers stumbled over the
sleepers outside our door.
We were astir early in the morning, and before eight o'clock Wasso
Mikali, Nikka and I left the khan--Wasso having given strict
injunction to his young men to stick to their quarters and discourage
any endeavors to make them talk--to cross the Golden Horn to the
European quarter of Pera. This walk was no less fascinating than our
ride from the Adrianople Gate. It took us through the northeastern
half of Stamboul, and after we had passed the lower bridge of boats,
into the comparatively civilized conditions of the Galata and Pera
areas.
But to tell the truth, once we had left Stamboul Nikka and I thought
little of our surroundings. Nikka even relinquished some of the
wolfish manner which his return to Gypsy life had inspired, and we
discussed eagerly, and not for the first time, the possibility that
harm had come to Hugh. But our fears were relieved when we came to
the corner of the street opposite the hotel, for there by the
entrance stood Hugh and Watkins chatting with Vernon King.
Nikka led the three of us up to the hotel, shambling ungracefully and
goggling at the Western aspect of the building and the people who
passed on the sidewalk.
"Anybody covering them?" he whispered.
I looked around. On the farther curbstone, smoking and pretending to
be interested in the passers-by, lounged two individuals who might
have been cut from the same pattern as ourselves; and I indicated
them to Nikka as I offered him tobacco from the box I carried
Balkan-fashion in my waist-sash.
"All right," he said, "we must be careful. We'll move up beside
Hugh, and when there's nobody in earshot you say what you have to
say, speaking to me."
We peered open-mouthed into the lobby, gaped at shop-windows and
slowly worked to a position close by Hugh and Vernon King. I was
amused to observe that Watkins confined his attention to the two
spies across the street, whom he favored with a steady, malignant
gaze. King, too, was immersed in the conversation. Hugh gave us one
keen glance, obviously because we were Gypsies. But he did not
recognize us, and indeed, in our gaudy clothes, dirty and unshaven,
we looked nothing like his memory of us.
"If they don't come in the next few--" King was saying as we halted
close by, staring at a Levantine lady in a Parisian frock who was
entering a taxi.
"Better not," warned Hugh, with a wink toward us.
"This is one time we fooled you," I remarked, speaking in a low tone
of voice at Nikka--there was nobody else within twenty feet of our
groups at the moment. "Jack speaking, Hugh. You and Watty follow
us. Go around the block the other way from us. We'll pick you up."
Nikka had a bright thought as we started off. The Commissionaire at
the hotel entrance had been watching us with suspicion, and Nikka
made a pretense of thrusting by him into the lobby. The
Commissionaire grabbed him by the arm, and hustled him on to the
sidewalk, and at this we all pretended uneasiness and hurried up the
street. Hugh and Watkins watched us disappear, then said good-by to
King, and walked down the street. They were rounding the corner of
the farther side of the block as we entered it, and when we made sure
they had seen us, we turned into a cross-street that led between
buildings toward Galata and the Golden Horn.
Hugh's shadows had a poor time of it after that, and I believe we
lost them in the maze of crooked lanes in Stamboul. At any rate,
they were nowhere in sight when we dodged into the gateway of the
Khan of the Georgians. Hugh was bursting to talk, but Nikka motioned
to him to be silent. The appearance of two Europeans like himself
and Watkins was bound to attract some attention, and we rushed them
through the courtyard as rapidly as possible. Of course, everybody
who noticed them at all concluded that they were up to no good,
considering the disreputable company they were in.
So they panted after us up the steep stairs to the second gallery,
and Wasso Mikali opened the door of our cubicle and stood aside until
Watkins had entered. Then he came in, himself, and locked it and
squatted down with his back against it. He was as imperturbable as
Watkins, which is saying a great deal. Watkins surveyed the room
with cool disfavor, drew his finger through a smudge of smoke on the
wall and shook his head.
"Dear, dear, gentlemen," he said. "They don't do very well for you
'ere, do they, now? A proper queer place, I call it. And you 'ave
changed, too, if I may say so. Mister Jack, sir, you must let me
draw you a 'ot tub, and I'll give Mister Nikka a shave."
We shouted with laughter.
"That is supposed to be a disguise, Watty," exploded Hugh. "My word,
it's a good one! You lads had me fooled completely. I looked at you
just as I've looked at scores of rascals like you, and King and I
went on wondering what had become of you. I say, who's the old gent?"
Nikka introduced his uncle, and Wasso Mikali met Hugh with the
unstudied courtesy that made it so difficult to remember that he knew
nothing of what we call manners or the gentler aspects of life.
"I wish you'd tell him how much I appreciate his assistance," said
Hugh. "And I shall be very glad to--"
"Hold on, Hugh," I interrupted. "Remember, he's Nikka's uncle. And
besides, he's a king in a small way on his own."
Hugh turned squarely on Nikka.
"My mistake, old man," he said. "I apologize for what I didn't say.
But will you please give him my thanks, all the same."
Wasso Mikali's bright eyes, eyes that sparkled with vitality, took on
a humorous gleam.
"He says," Nikka translated, chuckling, "that he appreciates your
thanks, but he never does anything for thanks. He is here because I
am interested and there is a chance of fighting, and he never loses
an opportunity to draw his knife, if there is loot to be won or a
friend to be aided."
"He's a sportsman," approved Hugh.
"And there are six more like him in the next room," I added.
"I say, Nikka, you brought a feudal levy--what?" Hugh exclaimed
delightedly. "Well, we shall need them. This is going to be a tight
job, if you ask me."
"Is Toutou here?"
"I think not. So far as we have observed, none of the headliners has
appeared on the scene, but the underlings are very efficient. Vernon
King and I have been over the ground rather thoroughly. He's been a
priceless help, Jack. Don't know what Watty and I would have done
without him. He saved us from having to rely on a guide to learn the
city. And Betty--she's the most enthusiastic worker on our side."
"She would be," I agreed. "But you don't mean to say that you and
she have really done any work?"
"Oh, come, now," he expostulated. "What do you take me for? We have
worked a lot. Betty has a motor-launch her father chartered so they
could run up and down the coast on his archæological trips, and we
used that to mark down the house where we think the treasure is
located."
Nikka and I both forgot our Gypsy stoicism, and hitched forward. We
were sitting on the floor; Hugh and Watkins, in recognition of their
clean clothes were perched on two packs.
"Have you really got a line on the site of the Bucoleon?" asked Nikka.
"Yes," said Hugh. "Matter of fact, that was comparatively easy,
thanks to Vernon King. You see, he knows his Constantinople of old;
and after consulting with some other learned Johnnies out at Robert
College and several ancient Greeks of the Syllogos, the Historical
Society, you know, he was able to point out quite accurately the
general site of the Great Palace. When we had gone so far, it became
a case of picking out the building within that area that held our
prize.
"In that we were helped by knowing that it was occupied by a band of
Gypsies, who had lived there a long time. The Phanariots, Greeks of
the Syllogos, I mean, picked out the building like a shot. To verify
it, we watched it from the street and also from the motor-launch.
There isn't any doubt about it. It's in what they call Sokaki
Masyeri, a mean little street in a mean quarter that skirts the old
sea-walls beyond the railroad tracks.
"This house is built right on the walls. It has a kind of battered
magnificence, elaborately carven cornices and window-moldings, and it
rambles over a good bit of ground, including a fairish-sized
courtyard, just as you would expect of the wreck of an old palace.
To be sure, it's no more than a small portion of what was the Palace
of the Bucoleon. As Vernon King pointed out, the man who started out
to excavate the whole site of the Palace would have to embark in the
real estate business on a large scale and work with steam-dredgers."
"And you're positive about all this?" I insisted.
"Oh, lord, yes! There can't be any mistake, Jack. Why, the bird who
lives in this house is the king of the Stamboul Gypsies, the chief
bad man of Constantinople. He has a whole tribe of cut-throats at
his beck and call. Ask anybody here about Beran Tokalji--"
Wasso Mikali leaped to his feet at sound of that name and strode over
to us, his hand on his knife.
"What's the row?" inquired Hugh as the old Gypsy and Nikka engaged in
a brisk exchange of sibilant phrases.
"Our friend has this person Tokalji's number," I explained. "He told
us about him. He had heard about the treasure and the house."
"Then we must be right," cried Hugh.
"You're right enough," agreed Nikka, while Wasso Mikali returned to
his place by the door and rolled a cigarette. "It seems, also, that
this Tokalji is a particular enemy of my uncle. He was suggesting a
little exterminating expedition."
"That's the last move to try," answered Hugh quickly. "We've got to
be very careful. The authorities were rather puzzled to account for
my continued interest in the city, at first. As it is--"
He turned brick-red to his hair.
"As it is," I grinned, "your pursuit of Bet has material advantages."
"Curse you, Jack," he retorted disagreeably, "that's not the way to
put it. And anyhow, I'm not responsible for what damnfool officials
think."
"You are in luck," said Nikka with a smile.
Hugh stood up, hot and exasperated.
"I didn't come here to be spoofed by a couple of idiotic rotters," he
snapped. "When you find your senses, send for me."
"Oh, hang on to your temper, Hugh," I said, dropping my hand on his
shoulder. "Get back to where we were. You said we must play safe.
We've got six of Nikka's cousins in the next room, first-class
knife-handlers, every one of them. With Wasso Mikali and us, that
makes eleven."
"And Vernon King is twelve," added Hugh. "He wants to be in on the
whole business. It appeals to his archæological bump, as well as to
his sporting tastes. But we can't have a rough house yet. We don't
know the ground well enough. We've got to determine where the
treasure is in that house."
"Did you get the copy of the Instructions from Miss King?" asked
Nikka.
"Yes, and had her immediately mail it to herself, Poste Restante, as
we agreed. It's there now. I don't need it. I found I had
memorized it perfectly. No, the next step is to get inside that
house, by stealth, if possible, by force, if every other means fails."