all the way past
Foundoucli and the Tophana quay to where one turns into the Golden Horn
by St. Sophia, around the mouth of the Horn being a vast semicircle of
charred wreckage, carried out by the river-currents. I went up the steps
on the Galata side before one comes to where the barge-bridge was. When
she had followed me on to the embankment, I walked up one of those
rising streets, very encumbered now with stone-_debris_ and ashes, but
still marked by some standing black wall-fragments, it being now not far
from night, but the air as clear and washed as the translucency of a
great purple diamond with the rain and the afterglow of the sun, and all
the west aflame.

When I was about a hundred yards up in this old mixed quarter of Greeks,
Turks, Jews, Italians, Albanians, and noise and cafedjis and
wine-bibbing, having turned two corners, I suddenly gathered my skirts,
spun round, and, as fast as I could, was off at a heavy trot back to
the quay. She was after me, but being taken by surprise, I suppose, was
distanced a little at first. However, by the time I could scurry myself
down into the boat, she was so near, that she only saved herself from
the water by a balancing stoppage at the brink, as I pushed off. I then
set out to get back to the ship, muttering: 'You can have Turkey, if you
like, and I will keep the rest of the world.'

I rowed sea-ward, my face toward her, but steadily averted, for I would
not look her way to see what she was doing. However, as I turned the
point of the quay, where the open sea washes quite rough and loud, to go
northward and disappear from her, I heard a babbling cry--the first
sound which she had uttered. I did look then: and she was still quite
near me, for the silly maniac had been running along the embankment,
following me.

'Little fool!' I cried out across the water, 'what are you after now?'
And, oh my good God, shall I ever forget that strangeness, that wild
strangeness, of my own voice, addressing on this earth another human
soul?

There she stood, whimpering like an abandoned dog after me. I turned the
boat, rowed, came to the first steps, landed, and struck her two
stinging slaps, one on each cheek. While she cowered, surprised no
doubt, I took her by the hand, led her back to the boat, landed on the
Stamboul side, and set off, still leading her, my object being to find
some sort of possible edifice near by, not hopelessly burned, in which
to leave her: for in all Galat