been at the hotel very often during the last month, while visiting the
sights of the city, and most of these fellows knew him by sight. At all
events, it would be easy for them to recognize a well-dressed Frank
gentleman in trouble.

Patoff saw the last of them leave the hotel, and stood staring out upon
the Grande Rue de Pera, wondering what should be done next. The town
residence of the embassy was closed for the summer, and there were only
two or three sleepy servants in the place, who could be of no use. He
thought of getting a horse and riding rapidly back to Buyukdere, in
order to warn the ambassador of his brother's disappearance; but on
reflection it seemed that he would do better to stay where he was. The
short June night would soon be past, and by daylight he could at once
prosecute his search in Stamboul with safety and with far greater
probability of finding the lost man. He knew that the kavass would
remain with the carriage all night behind Santa Sophia, and then at dawn
he should still find them there. Meanwhile, he took a _hamal_,--a
luggage porter from the hotel,--and, armed with a lantern and a stick,
began to beat the different quarters of Pera, judging that in the three
or four hours before daylight he could pass through most of the streets.

Hour after hour he trudged along, pale with fatigue and anxiety, his big
features hardening with despairing determination as he walked. He
searched every street and alley; he interviewed the Bekjees, who stamp
along the streets, pounding the pavement with their iron-shod clubs; he
tramped out to the Taksim, and down again to Galata tower, plunging into
the dark alleys about the Oriental Bank, skirting lower Pera to the
Austrian embassy, and climbing up the narrow path between tall houses,
till he was once more in the Grande Rue; crossing to the filthy quarters
of Kassim Pascha and emerging at the German Lutheran church, crossing,
recrossing, stumbling over gutters and up dirty back lanes, silent and
determined still, addressing only the sturdy Kurd by his side to ask if
there were any streets still unexplored, and entering every new by-path
with new hope. At last he found himself once more at Galata bridge, and
the light of the lantern began to pale before the grayness of the coming
morning. He paid the Kurdish porter a generous fee, and giving his tiny
coin to the tall keeper of the bridge, whose white garments looked
whiter in the dawn, he walked on until he w