day we will go past the garden of Kurd Mirza." His face grew hard and thin as he spoke the name, as we had seen happen many times before. To us passing this garden was the height of danger; only Ivan's presence gave us courage. I am sure no threat from Uncle Lionel could have made us go by it with him. Ann and I clutched hands; we knew that when the white stucco wall was reached we would be clutching Ivan, for he had told us tales of the horrors within, and from our imaginations we had completed the picture. It was a garden where nothing blossomed; skeletons, hyenas, slimy things, crawled in its sand. From the trees fell appleworms as big as an arm, white, made in sections, like an accordion. It was a place where we could assign all the night fears of childhood. My largest contribution was mad dogs and quicksand. Ann sent in a consignment of milkmen, and when I argued that milkmen were harmless, she would answer wisely, "Oh, yes, of course they are now; for I 've locked them all up." All this sense of terror we had caught more from Ivan's face than from his word, and we had caught it from the face of our nurse, a country woman of his, when they had talked together of Kurd Mirza in the shadow of the veranda. The road we knew well. When we came to the blue-tiled village fountain we took the upper road leading to the left; then we would pass the guard-house, and we knew that the soldiers would speak to us in the kindly way Turkish men often address children, and if the handsome, swarthy Abdul was there, it might be things to eat, or kittens to see, or a lame puppy picked out of a Stamboul gutter, anyway, his handsome, good-natured self to admire.

"O-he-yah," he called, coming out of the blackness of the guard-house and blinking in the strong light. "So once again the little daughters pursue their books. Learn while young; you will see the folly of it when older." He pushed back his Astrakhan fez with a wise gesture; then turning to Ivan, his strong, yellow teeth flashed in a wolfish smile. "And once again does Ivan take them the long way so that he may pass the garden of his enemy. But not only

does Kurd Mirza Pasha yet live, but she lives, too, eh? It was never written that either should die of Montenegrin knifing. Ha!" He laughed, tipping back his square head, and his companions laughed, although I doubt if they could understand the Serbian dialect. "Kurd Mirza lives," he taunted, or rather boasted. "What giaour shall kill Kurd Mirza or any whom his hand protects? What; did you think the girl would stay in the mountains and drink sour goats' milk with you when she might live on heratlakoon with a pasha? Man! I say to you-" "Hold your infernal tongue!"

Abdul bowed politely and very goodnaturedly; then, with a gesture to us to wait, he went to the guard-house and came back with a green Amasain pear for each of us. Ivan, unruffled, made himself a cigarette, and lit it from the rude Turk's. Abdul always blew the smoke through his nostrils. It gave

him a spirited, dragon-like appearance that he admired immensely. The conversation had taken a very unpleasant turn. Usually there was some mention of the pasha and the mysterious "she," but not until cigarettes and discussion of military affairs to the north had made them friendly. There was a sad refrain to their tales of war: "Then we burned that village and went on to the next." Often Abdul-he was some kind of officer and very independent— would walk as far as the cemetery with us, a street dog at his heels, exhorting us to marry good Mohammedans.

"I have sworn to kill her first," said Ivan; "for she is a Christian and guiltier than he. I am in no hurry; the time will come. I wait, and he knows that I wait. Not even the harem of the sultan is more closely guarded."

"That is correct," Abdul agreed. "But do not kill the pasha until he has made me lancer in the sultan's own body-guard, even as he has promised me." He called after us as we started on, "Allah billiah," and we turned, and waved our hands to him.

To our left was the hobbledehoy Turkish cemetery. The painted stones lay criss-crossed like jackstraws, and from among them rose century-old cypresses. Some lived, and some were

dead. The contrast between the dense tapestry of the living and the brown lace of the skeletons suggested a quaint change of stitches upon embroidery. Beyond them and through them, many, many feet below, we could see the Bosporus running free and beautiful, holding the slovenly Russian merchantmen powerless more than to keep their own against the "Devil's Current." Later the tide would change, and admit them to the Black Sea. Little Ann always pitied these struggling boats. She thought they must suffer as she did in bad dreams, when she could not run.

"You observe," said Ivan, pointing to the cemetery, "how these infidels bury their dead, very near to the surface? Why? They know they must soon leave Europe and wish to have their ancestors handy, for they will take them with them. You know, when the Turks leave Europe, our Black Ivan will break from his cave at Obod, alive again to help his Montenegrins. Two years ago I Two years ago I put my ear to his grave. I heard, 'Whahan, wha-han,' It was Ivan snoring; but he snored like five o'clock in the morning. He will awake soon, perhaps by five-fifteen."

"Look," interrupted little Ann. "There are horses and some men." The road turned, and we were beside them. One was a young orderly; he was uninteresting. The other had dismounted and was tightening his girth, the skirt of the saddle held up by his head and shoulder, as horsemen hold them the world over. It was a wiry, quiet-looking horse, blotched and streaked with the sweat of a hard journey. The man wore the ubiquitous fez. I can really remember very little about him except that he was of an awkward, powerful build, and when we approached, he raised his face, and it was heavy and awkward, like his body.

"It is Kurd Mirza Pasha," breathed Ivan. Now, Ann and I had seen pashas before, but always before they had worn gilded and padded uniforms or the noble frock-coat. This man was dirty and tired. Since then I have looked up what I can about him. It seems that he was a self-made man, with an un-Oriental interest in railroads. At that time he was hoping to

put one through the Belgrade Forest. His tendencies were European, and his death is given in the encyclopedia as due to this reason. I wish I could remember him in more detail. I only know that his eyes were light, with that odd look of the occasionally blue-eyed man in a race generally dark. Ivan stopped beside him and saluted.

"You are Kurd Mirza Pasha," he said; "do you know me?" He made no pretenses, this quiet pasha; he answered:

"I have been warned against a certain Montenegrin gate-keeper. Are you he?" "Yes."

"I shall know you again.” The voice made the words a threat. The pasha's lean horse pawed in the dust. The master swung into the saddle; a word, and the two horses plunged into life. The dust from their galloping hoofs settled upon our clothes. Then we drew close to our protector and shivered, for to the right was the dirty stucco wall, and beyond the wall was the horrible garden, "cursed and accursed." Only one doorway broke its southern expanse —a door never to be opened. We could see that when last the wall had been painted the workmen had left it shut, for the crumbling paint filled the chinks between it and the jambs.

Two or three weeks later there was a grand party at the Eatons, to which we were invited to partake, behind scenes with the children and "Miss Goosey." Our nurse walked over with us in the afternoon, and informed us that Uncle Lionel had told the head groom to call for us later with Ali and Baba. We could hardly wait to go home. At nine we stood at the servants' entrance, waiting for the glossy, black Russians. They did not come. Instead came Ivan, drifting toward us through the dark as noiseless as a hunting animal.

"God bless you! God bless you!" he gave quiet greeting. "I am sorry, but the little ladies must walk; everything has gone wrong to-day. Baba"-the handsomest of the pair-"fell upon Galatea Bridge. Your uncle paid a bashi-bazouk silver to shoot him." Our mourning was not loud; it does not take even children long to catch something of the Eastern spirit of resignation.

"Yes," he assented; "helvar." "And figs and dried apricots," I urged.

"Yes," he agreed. "And I shall tell the cook to make us each a bun as long as my pipe. We shall travel for miles, and then sit under a tree and eat, and then come home just at sunset. Where shall we go? Along the Bosporus to Therapia and Buykdere, toward the Black Sea; inland through the Valley of Roses; or north toward Montenegro?" he sighed.

"Let's go to Asia on the ferry first," begged Ann.

"There is always much to see in Asia," grunted Ivan, "for there is Smyrna and Damascus and Bagdad, too, and at Teheran we will leave the donkeys in a deep pasture, hire a caravan of camels, and still go on. You children have never seen a Chinaman?"

"Yes, yes, indeed," cried Ann, jumping up and down in the dark. "And they will live in laundries," she half chanted, "and you must not tell them that they eat rats, or they will eat you. And if you give them pink paper, they will give you collars." I do not think that Ivan followed this rush of English, but he knew that we were happy, and he made contented clicks in his throat.

Suddenly, to our left the great wall shouldered through the gloom, and the little sparks of joy that Ivan had kindled in himself and in us went out and left a vaster darkness. The handle of the lantern rattled in Ann's frightened hand. We followed down the wall in silence, for the dogs had called a truce. Then the trees began to rustle, and Ivan threw back his head.

"Feel the wind! smell it! The rain and cold shall come." It was the wind from the Black Sea, cold and clean. It sifted through the hot, sodden air, brooding in the plane-trees by the way. Then silence, ghastly silence. We stole furtive glances at the wall. It seemed to have expanded enormously in the night. The dogs had begun again, and their sinister discords vibrated against it. They were nearer to us now; some must have strayed as far as the cemetery. Ivan recoiled in a sudden halt. His hand was raised, his eyes turned toward the wall.

"Did you hear?" he demanded. Our untrained ears had heard nothing; but we had, more exactly, felt a cry of distress. It was not repeated, and we plowed on through a dark which the little lantern only intensified.

A

There came a whir and a rush. flapping, leaping thing had bumped into us, and, bat-like, knocked out the light. The blind door of the garden had opened, and given forth this banshee. Of the short conversation that followed we understood only phrases and ejaculations, but we understood the terror and emotion that heaved in the two bodies, and we knew that this whitefaced, half-seen thing was the "she" whom Ivan had sworn to kill. He had taken the bloody knife from her hand, and face to face they stood at last. Did the idea of killing her enter his mind? I do not think so; instead, his thought must have been, “She has murdered the pasha, and unless I save her, she will die for it." He must have known the temper of the Turks well enough to realize that they would seek no further for the assassin than the man who held the instrument. When he asked her why she had killed the pasha, he spoke so slowly Ann and I could comprehend every word; and her answer, her admission that it was because of jealousy in the harem, not, as Ivan might have wished, for hatred for her seducer-all that we understood also.

"Remember," he said, "I do this thing for you not because I do not know how false you are, but because--because-" His voice broke in the middle of his brave speech, and he turned from us toward the garden. The woman was gone. Dazed and forgotten, we watched him feel along the wall until, like a shadow, he melted through it. We stood rooted to the ground, too frightened to speak, move, or think. Now the darkness crowded and threatened Our throats grew together and froze. Twice Ann tried to call Ivan's name, but her futile attempts to articulate were more terrible to me than any scream could have been. Frightful as the alternative appeared to be, we had no choice. We followed Ivan through the doorway into the accursed garden. He was our one thought above the ter

us.

Every

ror which was everywhere. where; but where was terror in this hushed garden? We stood upon the threshold of fairyland, and drank in through every sense the assurance of peace. Silence, a breathing, living silence, that seemed to float upon the fragrance of many flowers, heliotrope, clematis, roses, I do not know what. And through the silence water plashed and murmured to our right and to our left and far away before us. It was a dim place, a vast green gloom. My wondering fingers touched a vase, so huge a vase that ten of my size could have hidden within. Under my hand its flank seemed to swell and pulse. At the dim end of the garden was the palace, and through it lights flitted, as if many fireflies were in desperate search. Perhaps it was the cry that Ivan heard that they sought, or they sought the missing woman. We pushed past blossoming white bushes that stared in the darkness. The path led us to an opening among the trees in the center of which was a dark pool of still water, and—

"See," I whispered, for there beside the pool crouched Ivan. We did not hurry, because we were no longer afraid. Approaching quietly, we stared over his shoulder and saw what he saw -only a black heap as shapeless as a blown-down scarecrow. One limp arm dragged in the pool. We knew who it was, the owner of the garden, the tired man whom we had once passed as he fixed his horse's girth, the one whom Abdul thought no giaour could kill. Yet here he lay, face down in the moonlight, still, dumb.

"Asleep," murmured little Ann, careful not to wake him.

"Dead," I answered from two years' sadder knowledge of the world. droned the word twice after me:

"Dead, dead."

She

To us, seeing all in the dark, there was nothing ghastly in a sight that would have shaken older imaginations. It was no more than things imagined. The pasha did not suffer or struggle; he was only dead. The sight of a fly, caught in a spider's web, would have aroused our pity quicker than did the black form of the murdered man.

Baba's death moved us more nearly. He had fallen and broken his leg; we could imagine his sufferings. Here was only death itself, and our imagination broke down before the fact. The inner eye was mercifully closed that night; we saw only with the physical. Strange that death in the most tragic form I have ever seen still seems to me the gentlest and the kindest.

Ivan raised his face.

"You must go away," he said gently. "If I can, I will send some one to take you home. God bless you, my children!" From the palace lights and noise were spreading through the garden. "Hurry, and may God bless you, and me, too!" He pointed to the way that we had come, and, still without speaking, we retraced our steps. Enough of the magic of the garden still remained with us to keep us calm even when we stood upon the road again. But at the cemetery we stopped. The great cypresses, some living and some dead, towered above us like evil genii rising from the graves. The dogs had begun to howl. So there in the dark gutter we sat down to wait for the guide Ivan had promised us. We waited and waited, cuddled together in a little ball, crying in a silent, unchildlike manner, our faces washed with each other's tears.

A tall figure was passing us on the road.

"Huh, you little giaours," he snapped. "Well, it is I, Abdul." There seemed to be no gloom too dense for his fierce, narrow eyes to penetrate. He was fresh from the scene of the murder, and all the savage part of his nature had been called to the surface by the sight of spilled blood. Silently he swung the little Ann to his great shoulder, and seized me by my wrist. He was a naked sword of Moslem fury, ready, like the wounded beast, to tear whatever was nearest to his claws. I think he might have killed us without a quiver, but his freak of mood was otherwise. He took us home. By the time we had reached the lamp-lit gates he had ceased his frowning. Ann knew, for she kept her place on his shoulder with her arm around his head and her hand on his forehead. When she felt his forehead