182 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



been stolen when I was wounded, and I was very 

 indifferent about the token of national gratitude 

 offered to me. Alecco, however, had horses ready, 

 and I set off. In the evening I found myself estab- 

 lished in a very dilapidated and dirty, but not 

 inelegant Turkish house. The gates of the fortress 

 were closed before Demetri could enter with my 

 baggage ; Alecco had disappeared to pass the night 

 with a conclave of politicians, and I was alone in my 

 palace with a couple of muleteers. I paced the 

 musifir oda, with its gilded but tarnished roof, and 

 looked out of my windows on the port, with some- 

 thing of the feelings with which Andrea Doria must 

 have walked the streets of Genoa before. 



' ' The ocean waves his wealth reflected ; ' ' 

 and I smiled as I mumbled, not without vanity, 

 "It is a nation's gift to her deliverer." 



It was late ere I went to sleep, but as usual, before 

 I closed my eyes, I ascertained that Abney's minia- 

 ture was safe. Demetri awoke me in the morning 

 entering with the baggage, and I perceived that the 

 portrait had been stolen during the night ; the two 

 ribbons which bound it round my neck and across 

 my breast had both been cut. I communicated my 

 loss to Demetri ; we sent to the police ; examined the 

 muleteers ; I summoned Alecco, and he had every 



