The Dark Star

And because the old, sleepy-eyed Admiral seemed so interested and

amused, I told him about Herr Wilner's box and his diary and the plans

and maps and photographs with which I used to play as a little child.

After dinner, Princess Naïa asked me what it was I had been telling

Murad Pasha to wake him up so completely and to keep him so amused. So

I merely said that I had been telling the Admiral about my childhood

in Brookhollow.

Naturally neither she nor I thought about the incident any further.

Murad did not come again; but a few days later the Turkish Chargé

d'Affaires was present at a very large dinner given by Princess Naïa.

And two curious conversations occurred at that dinner: The Turkish Chargé suddenly turned to me and asked me in English

whether I were not the daughter of the Reverend Wilbour Carew who once

was in charge of the American Mission near Trebizond. I was so

surprised at the question; but I answered yes, remembering that Murad

must have mentioned me to him.

He continued to ask me about my father, and spoke of his efforts to

establish a girls' school, first at Brusa, then at Tchardak, and

finally near Gallipoli. I told him I had often heard my father speak

of these matters with my mother, but that I was too young to remember

anything about my own life in Turkey.

All the while we were conversing, I noticed that the Princess kept

looking across the table at us as though some chance word had

attracted her attention.

After dinner, when the gentlemen had retired to the smoking room, the

Princess took me aside and made me repeat everything that Ahmed Mirka

had asked me.

I told her. She said that the Turkish Chargé was an old busybody,

always sniffing about for all sorts of information; that it was safer

to be reticent and let him do the talking; and that almost every scrap

of conversation with him was mentally noted and later transcribed for

the edification of the Turkish Secret Service.

I thought this very humorous; but going into the little salon where

the piano was and where the music was kept, while I was looking for an

old song by Messager, from "La Basoche," called "Je suis aimé de la

plus belle--" Ahmed Mirka's handsome attaché, Colonel Izzet Bey, came

up to where I was rummaging in the music cabinet.

He talked nonsense in French and in English for a while, but somehow

the conversation led again toward my father and the girls' school at

Gallipoli which had been attacked and burned by a mob during the first

month after it had been opened, and where the German, Herr Wilner, had

been killed.