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CHAPTEE V IN A FORGOTTEN CAPITAL I HAD reached my present quarters, in the most charming way possible, having been brought to them practically blindfold ; and I awoke next morning with the sense that I was lying in the middle of mystery. Of what the town was like, of what the people were like, or of what sort of sentiment I should find abroad in the air, I hardly knew more than I did when I left London. I lazily looked up at the sloping ceiling above me, which was formed of some fine matting, stretched upon beams of olive wood. My eyes wandered to the un-painted door, on which fanciful iron hinges branched into lean crescents. I glanced at the stone floor, with a thick Persian mat on it. The chest of drawers and the looking-glass I recognised as European. Presently through the perfect stillness came a long-drawn lilting sound, something like a crow imitating a town crier. I turned towards the window, which was close beside my bed, and drew back from it the semitransparent curtains. The sight of the blue

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