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All this time the heartbroken girl, rudely awakened from her dream of bliss, was a prisoner in the deserted house next the mosque. As the dreary months went by her skin regained its pinkness and her beautiful hair its golden tint,–walnut shells and cosmetics not being found in the private toilet of the priests and their companions. When the summer came a greater privilege was given her. She could never speak to any one and no one could speak to her–even the priests knew this–but a gate opening into the high-walled garden was left unlocked now and then by one of the kind-hearted Mohammedans, and often she would wander as far as the end of the wall overlooking the Mosque of Suleiman, her attendant always with her–a black woman appointed by Chief-of-Police Selim, and responsible for her safety, and who would pay forfeit with her head if Yuleima escaped.

“And you think now, effendi,” concluded Joe, as he drained his last cup of coffee (Hornstog’s limit was twenty cups at intervals of three minutes each), “that Joe be big damn fool to put his foots in this–what you call–steel trap? No, no, we keep away. To-morrow, don’t it, we take Yusuf and go Scutari? One beautiful fountain at Scutari like you never see!”

“But can’t her father help?” I asked, ignoring his suggestion. His caution did not interest me. It was the imprisoned girl and her suffering that occupied my thoughts.

“Yes, perhaps, but not yet. I somethings hear one day from the gardener who live with her father, but maybe it all lie. He say Serim come and say–” Again Joe chafed his thumb and forefinger, after the manner of the paying teller. “Maybe ten thousand piastres–maybe twenty. Her father would pay, of course, only the Sultan might not like–then worse trouble–nothing will be done anyhow until the wedding is over. Then, perhaps, some time.”

I did not go to Scutari the next day. I opened my easel in the patio of the Pigeon Mosque and started in to paint the plaza with Cleopatra’s Needle in the distance. This would occupy the morning. In the afternoon I would finish my sketch of Suleiman. Should Joe have a fresh attack of ague he could join Yusuf at the cafe and forget it in the thimbleful that cheers but does not inebriate.

With the setting up of my tripod and umbrella and the opening of my color-box a crowd began to gather–market people, fruit-sellers, peddlers, scribes, and soldiers. Then a shrill voice rang out from one of the minarets calling the people to prayer. A group of priests now joined the throng about me watched me for a moment, consulted together, and then one of them, an old man in a silken robe of corn-yellow bound about with a broad sash of baby blue, a majestic old man, with a certain rhythmic movement about him which was enchanting, laid his hand on Joseph’s shoulder and looking into his eyes, begged him to say to his master that the making of pictures of any living or dead thing, especially mosques, was contrary to their religion, and that the effendi must fold his tent.

All this time another priest, an old patriarch with a fez and green turban and Nile-green robe overlaid with another of rose-pink, was scrutinizing my face. Then the corn-yellow fellow and the rose-pink patriarch put their heads together, consulted for a moment, made me a low bow, performed the flying-fingers act, and floated off toward the mosque.

“You no go ‘way, effendi,” explained Joe. “The priest in green turban say he remember you; he say you holy man who bow yourselluf humble when dead man go by. No stop paint.”

The protests of the priests, followed by their consultation and quiet withdrawal, packed the crowd the closer. One young man in citizen’s dress and fez stood on the edge of the throng trying to understand the cause of the excitement.