“There!” he exclaimed. “Are not those sublime? But they are deadly, too; for in them lurk huge spiders, as big as tigers and twice as fierce. You smile, as if in doubt. I do not blame you. It _is_ hard to believe. But they are there. I am no zoologist, so I can not explain it, but I have been told that spiders came ages ahead of man on this earth, as their fossils are found in rock of the primary epoch, while we appear first with the quaternary. If this be so, perhaps these ogres are survivals of gigantic prehistoric spider forebears. But I don’t pretend to know anything about it, except that they are there. No hunter has ever tamed them; but I have caught and caged one. You shall see it, before you leave. Look now to the right.” Afar off, yet perfectly plain in every line, thanks to the limpid clearness of the air, lying in the arms of emerald meadows with her head pillowed on undulating hills crowned with cypresses as brunette as the Queen of Sheba, lay Constantinople, many-colored yet shimmering iridescently under the sapphire tent of heaven, while the Golden Horn poured the waters of the East at her pearly feet. So noble was the sight that Page Lomax’s gaze lingered long upon it ere, following the sky-line, it rested at last on a frowning stronghold, whence a road wound down to a wharf at which a skiff was moored. So grim and threatening was this heap of stone that the young man asked Hosein: “What is that old keep?” “That,” replied his host, “I have named the Tower of Vengeance. During the late Muscovite war, my brother, Selim, held it as an outpost. But the boy’s soldiers were too few, our supporting column too far away. At dawn one day, the Russians hurled a regiment against it, stormed it, butchered its garrison, fired it. I was too late to save the boy, but I headed the cavalry, which cut off retreat for his murderers. As I charged in, their Colonel quenched this eye for me, but in ten minutes he and all his followers were dead. Selim is buried there. Thither I repair each afternoon to lament and feed his grave.” “To feed his grave?” echoed Page Lomax, inquiringly. “Yes. In each believer’s tomb is bored a hole, through which he can hearken to the weeping of those who love him, and can receive food from them. The hour for my observance of that rite is nigh. Can you respect it? If so, you may accompany me thither.”