The trembling executioner raised his eyes inquiringly toward the gallery; but a hard, dry voice was heard issuing from among those calm faces as unmoved and devoid of all expression as so many statues. “Kara-ali,” it said, “perform your duty.” The executioner at once attempted to seize Ibrahim by the shoulders, but he, uttering a loud shriek, flung himself into a corner behind the two slaves. Kara-ali, assisted by the sciaùs, however, threw the women aside, and again laid hold of the Pâdishah. There was an outburst of curses and maledictions, the sound of a heavy body being thrown violently to the ground, a piercing cry which ended in a dull rattle, and then profound silence. A bit of silken cord had launched the eighteenth sultan of the house of Osman into eternity. Other buildings, in addition to the ones already described and those of the harem, were scattered here and there throughout the woods and gardens; as, for instance, the baths of Selim II., comprising thirty-two vast apartments, a mass of marbles, gilding, and painting, and every variety of kiosk, round and octagonal, surmounted by domes and fantastic roofs, and enclosing rooms lined with mother-of-pearl and decorated with Arabian inscriptions. In every window hung a parrot’s or nightingale’s cage, and the light streamed through stained-glass panes in floods of blue or rose color. In some of these kiosks the pâdishahs were wont to have the _Thousand-and-One Nights_ read aloud to them by old dervishes; in others the little princes would receive their first lessons in reading with appropriate solemnities. There were little kiosks designed for meditation, and others for nocturnal meetings; nests and graceful little prison-houses erected and destroyed in obedience to some passing fancy, and commanding the most exquisite views of Skutari empurpled by the setting sun, or the Olympus bathed in silver by the rays of the moon, while the soft winds from the Bosphorus, heavy with perfume, made the golden crescents tremble and sway from the summit of each slender pinnacle.