The Sultan was growing impatient. 'A fit tale for ignorant peasants,' he declared. 'Me it doth not deceive. This is but another English vagabond sent hither by that old jackal Sir Thomas Bendish, their Ambassador at Constantinople, to dog my footsteps even here, and report my doings to him. I will not see her, were she ten times a witch, since she is of his nation and surely comes at his behest.' 'Let my lord slay his servant with his own hands rather than with his distrust,' returned the Grand Vizier. 'Had she come from Sir Thomas Bendish, or by his orders, straightway to him she should have returned. She hath never even seen him, nor so much as set eyes on our sacred city beside the Golden Horn. Had she gazed even from a distance upon the most holy Mosque of the Sacred Wisdom at Constantinople, she had surely been less utterly astonished at the sight of even our noble Sultan Selim in this city.' So saying, the Grand Vizier turned to the entrance of the pavilion, and gazed towards the town of Adrianople lying in the plain beneath, beyond the poplar-bordered stream of the Maritza. High above all other buildings rose the great Mosque of Sultan Selim, with its majestic dome surrounded by slender sky-piercing minarets. Its 999 windows shone glorious in the rays of the setting sun:--Sultan Selim, the glory of Adrianople, the ruin of the architect who schemed its wondrous beauty; since he, poor wretch, was executed on the completion of the marvel, for this crime only, that he had placed 999 windows within its walls, and had missed, though but by one, the miracle of a full thousand. The Vizier continued: 'The woman declares she hath come hither on foot, alone and unattended. Her tale is that she came by the sea from the Isles of Britain with several companions (filled all of them with the same desire to behold the face of the Sublime Magnificence) so far as Smyrna; where, declaring their wish unto the English Consul there, he, like a wise-hearted man, advised her and her companions "by all means to forbear."