The Lighted Match

From every pore Abdul Said Bey exuded sympathy and commiseration.

Scenting liberal backshish, he promised absolute secrecy for the

affair, coupled with soothing assurances of private vengeance upon the

surviving miscreants. Also, he bewailed the disgrace which had fallen

upon the Empire by reason of such infamy. He presumed that the foreign

gentlemen preferred secret punishment of the malefactors to a public

sensation. It should be so.

In his anxiety for Cara, Benton left Von Ritz to adjust matters with the

Turk, who with profound courtesy and amazing promptness had closed

carriages at a rear door, and caused his kavasses to clear the

alley-way of prying eyes.

When the American reached the room where Cara had been left it was

deserted by the assassin's guards. With a sudden stopping of his heart,

he saw her lying apparently lifeless on a stacked-up pile of rugs. In a

terror that he scarcely dared to investigate, he laid his ear hesitantly

to her breast, then, reassured, he gave thanks for the anesthetic of

unconsciousness with which nature had blinded her to the tragedy beyond

the closed door.

Two curtained carriages drove across Galata Bridge and in the mysterious

quiet of Stamboul there was no ripple on the surface of affairs as other

tourists haggled over a few piastres in the curio shops of the

bazaar.