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.