as half way over the Golden
Horn.

Stepping aside on to the wooden pier where the great ferry-boats were
moored, he leaned upon the rail and looked out over the water,
momentarily exhausted and unable to go further. The tender light tinged
the southeastern sky, and the far mist of the horizon seemed already hot
with the rising day. On the lapping water of the Horn the light fell
like petals of roses tossed in a mantle of some soft dark fabric
interwoven with a silvery sheen. Far across the mouth of the Bosphorus
the minarets of Scutari came faintly into view, and on the Stamboul side
the few lingering lamps which had outlasted the darkness, upon the lofty
minarets, paled and lost their yellow color, and then ceased to shine,
outdone in their turn by the rosy morning light. A wonderful stillness
had fallen on the great city, as one by one the tired parties of friends
had gone to rest, to shorten the day of fasting by prolonging their
sleep till late in the hot afternoon. The clank of some capstan on one
of the ferry-boats struck loud and clear on the still air, as the
reluctant sailors and firemen prepared for their first run to the Black
Sea, or across to Kadi Koei on the Sea of Marmara. Paul turned and looked
towards the mighty dome of Santa Sophia, and his haggard face was almost
as pale as the white walls. He lingered still, and suddenly the sun
sprang up behind the Serai, and gilded the delicate spires, and caught
the gold of the crescents on the mosques, and shone full upon the broad
water. Paul followed the light as it touched one glorious building after
another, and his hand trembled convulsively on the railing. Somewhere in
that great awakening city--his brother was somewhere, alive or dead,
amongst those white walls and glittering crescents and towering
minarets--somewhere, and he must be found. Paul bent his head, and
turning away hurried across the bridge, and plunged once more into
Stamboul, alone as he had come.

The streets were deserted, and the early morning air was full of the
smell of thousands of extinguished oil lamps, that peculiar and
pervading odor which suggests past revelry, sleepless hours, and the
vanity of turning night into day. It oppressed Paul's overwrought
senses, as he passed the melancholy remains of the illumination before
the post-office and the Sultan Valide mosque, and he hurried on towards
the more secluded streets leading to Santa Sophia, in which the night's
gayety had left no