officials of his court, to be torn to pieces before his eyes; and at the far end of the wall the Sepedgiler Kiosk, near which the sultans gave final audiences to their admirals about sailing for the seat of war. Thus the huge palace spread out and down from the summit of its hills--where were gathered and carefully defended all its more vital parts--to the seashore crowned with towers, bristling with cannon, decked with flowers, its gilded barges shooting across the waters in all directions, its thousand perfumes floating heavenward in a great cloud as from some huge altar; the myriad torches of its fêtes reflected in the placid waters; flinging from its battlements gold to the people, dead bodies to the waves--yesterday the plaything of a slave, to-day the sport of a maniac, to-morrow at the mercy of the mob, beautiful as an enchanted island and forbidding as a living sepulchre. The night is far advanced: each glittering star is reflected in the calm bosom of the Sea of Marmora, while the moon turns the Seraglio’s thousand domes to silver and whitens the tips of the cypress and plane trees. Deep shadows are cast across the open spaces below, and, one by one, the lights in all those innumerable little windows are extinguished. Mosque and kiosk rise white as snow against the dark background of the woods, and each spire and pointed minaret, aërial crescent, door of bronze, and gilded grating shines and sparkles among the trees as though part of a golden city. The imperial residence sleeps, the last of the three great gates has just been closed, and the far-off rattle of its huge keys can be heard as the kapuji turns away. In front of the Gate of Health a troop of kapujis stand watch beneath the lofty roof, while stationed along the wall by the Gate of Felicity, their faces in the shadow, immovable as so many bas-reliefs, thirty white eunuchs mount guard. From the walls and towers hundreds of hidden sentinels keep an active watch upon all the approaches, the sea and harbor, the deserted streets of the city, and the huge silent pile of St. Sophia. An occasional light still gleams in the huge kitchens of the first court, where some belated worker is finishing his task; then that too disappears, and the building becomes dark. Lights are still burning, though, in the houses of the Veznedar Agha and the Defterdar Effendi, and there seems to be some stir about the residence of the chief of the black eunuchs. Eunuchs patrol the deserted paths and wander in and out among the dark and silent kiosks, hearing no sounds save the sighing of the trees rocked by the sea-breeze and the monotonous murmur of the fountains. Perfect peace seems to enfold all that little world in its calm embrace, but only seemingly, for underneath those myriad roofs a tide of passionate life is stirring. That vast family of slaves, soldiers, prisoners, and servants, with their ambitions and heart-burnings, their loves and hates, let loose