Long afterward I saw him again.
I was traveling in far lands. Going over from Stamboul to Pera I stood
on the Galata bridge watching the great flood of living, pulsing human
life--those people of many races.
There was a fresh breeze from the North that day, and it set dancing
the caiques and barcas where they threaded their way among the big
ferry-boats and ships of many strange sails, and all the craft of
summer seas. There was a sparkle on the Bosphorus under the golden
sunshine and a gleam on the Golden Horn. A violet-hued haze hung over
the wide expanse, and through it one could see the repeated graces of
mosque and minaret, the Seven Towers and the rounded whiteness of Santa
Sophia. Higher, there was the green of laurel and lime, of rose-tree
and shrubbery in profusion--terrace upon terrace--and now and again
darker shadows made by the foliage of cypress or pine. All the morning
I had reveled in Nature’s great color scheme; had feasted eye and sense
on the amethyst, and emerald, and sapphire of water, and sky and shore.
And then I went to the Galata bridge.
There I stood and watched that medley of races moving by. Arab and
Ethiopian, Moslem and Jew; the garb of modern European civilization,
and the flowing robes of the East; Kurds, Cossacks and Armenians;
the gaudy red fez and the white turban of the Turk; dogs lean and
sneaking-eyed; other eyes that looked out from under the folds of a
yashmak. And always the babel of voices speaking many tongues. Greeks
and Albanians; the flowing mantle of Bedouins and the Tartar in
sheepskins. Ebbing and flowing--ebbing and flowing, the restless human
tide at the great Gateway of the East.
As I stood looking and listening, there came again without warning that
clutching at my heartstrings--that sharp pain in my left side--that
same dizzying whirl of thoughts--that sickening fear of something (I
knew not what) which I could not control; and out of the flowing tide
of faces I saw one not a stranger--he whom I did not know. His eyes
held mine again; and in that moment something seemed to tell me that he
was my everlasting curse. Through him would come things dread and evil;
from him there was no escape. I looked long--my eyes starting in their
sockets. I gasped--caught at the air--and lost consciousness.
* * * * *
When I recovered myself I was sitting in a little café whither a young
lad had assisted me. I gave him a few piasters and told him to leave
me. He took them, said:
“Pek eyi!” and went away.
Left alone at the café table, after motioning the attendant also
away, I sat and pondered. Where would this haunting dread end? The
basilisk eyes I so loathed had borne me a message which I could not yet
translate. Not yet. But he would pass me again some day, and once more
his eyes would speak a message. What was it? Something evil, I knew.
But what?
So I went away; went away from the Galata bridge; away from Pera and
Stamboul.
* * * * *