The turnkeys at first kept them back from us,
by penning them up within a space, along
the edge of which the warders kept running
backwards and forwards, like sheep-dogs along
the wall of a sheepfold when the hurdles are
taking up. The ruffians—some, but few,
unchained—fell back, as if we had lopped at their
necks with sabres.

Beyond this heaving, restless, half-aggressive
herd I could see, in the distant yard, outside
sheds, or seated on logs of arsenal timber,
unkempt Abhorsons, wrinkled treachery and
murder lurking in their eyes, cheating each
other at greasy and almost illegible cards;
others (old men), pipe in mouth, trying to
snatch pleasure from drones and drowses of short
sleep, tormented by the bystanders, or derided
by the thievish mocking youth of the prison.

"Where's mad Costanji?" cried Grimani
the stalwart, making gestures for the loathsome
crowd to stand back to give us room to breathe:
just as a shepherd would call to his dog to
single out a special foot-rotted sheep: or as
Charon might be supposed, from the pale
trembling crowds of dead, to pick out one who
has waited long for the first seat in his Stygian
barge.

The crowd parted, as the mob of a ballet might
part, to let the première danseuse swivel down
between its files; they made a lane, with grins and
nudges and wicked merriment and sham
respect, as if a pasha were going to sail through
them in his Damascus silks and turban of gold
tissue. The mad Costanji limped through—a
squalid gaunt Greek, old and lame, with a great
iron bracelet round his ankle, fastened to
a cumbrous chain with tremendous links,
hammered round his bony waist. Madness brooded
in his eyes, clotted ragged hair hung about
his pale craving hungry face. I saw in this
butt of the Bagnio, a fierce fanatic of strong
passions, and with a sleeping tiger in his blood.
Costanji was a murderer by instinct, habit, and
inclination. The fanaticism of a debased and
animal Church had persuaded him that, doing
these murders, was doing God's work. As
he limped forward and showed the sores which
the rubbing of the chain had caused, and pointed
whiningly (for the tiger was dead asleep now) to
the thin greasy rags that hung over his gaunt
limbs, Dr. Opinkoff drew me on one side and
reassured my mind.

"Take care," he said, "for there is a good
deal of fever always among these men. The
drainage is open, and they are badly fed—only a
piastre a day if they choose to work, which, if they
earn it, is not always paid."

Leaving the doctor to bluffly chide and
restrain the noisy crowd, and to refuse or grant
the petitions of some dozen thieves and
murderers, Grimani turned to me, and, speaking low
and in English, said:

"This mad Costanji is always here; he was
in once, for five years, then again for fifteen, now
he is in for nine, and will probably die in chains.
He is certainly mad, and, at all events, very
dangerous. No one knows how many men he
has killed. He is here now, for stabbing three men
in the great Greek feast last Epiphany, down
the Bosphorus. They have a custom at that
time, I believe, of throwing a cross into the
sea, and a fight ensued in the water for the cross;
some would pull it out, others would have
it in. Upon this, Costanji, as usual, went mad,
and killed his three men."

"What about his leg, doctor?"

"The fellow's bone is rotten," said the doctor,
sending down and pinching Costanji's knee-cap
and shin; the poor scoundrel gave a dreadful
scream, and went clinking off into his shed, at
which all the galley slaves yelled with delight.

"Where is that rogue who is in for burning
houses?" said Grimani, sternly, to the crowd.
A dozen hoarse voices, a laugh still ground-
swelling in them, called out that he was sick
somewhere. Half a dozen born parasites, long
out of work, ran to search for him in the upper
rooms of the shamble stables that the prisoners
sleep in.

"Is Walsh here?" inquired the doctor.

"No, thanks be to Allah! In the Zaptie,"
cried the villain chorus, bursting into a debauched
laugh, as if Walsh were some comedian whose
very name turned up the corners of the mouth.

"Is that an Englishman?" I asked,
sympathisingly.

"Indeed he is," said Opinkoff, "and as
troublesome as ten of our Russians. He is the pest
of the place, and talks like a parrot."

"Ah! Massa Walsh he do talk—talk
debblish," said a grinning Nubian in the front row.

"Hold your tongue, Mustapha," growled a
turnkey, who then whispered to me, the whites
of his eyes still turning to the crowd, "Be on
your guard, Chilibi, for these villains sometimes
mob you. There are more than three hundred of
them, and those chains are heavy enough to
brain a man."

"Yes, only last week," said the doctor, "they
got up a plot here to break loose and murder all the
keepers, as they have done before, and the affair
was only found out at the last moment. Katergee,
the Smyrniote chief who is chained to a
post in that last shed there, was at the bottom
of it. These men are quite free inside the walls;
they may smoke, talk, play at cards, fight, work,
or not, as they like. Don't let that Maltese
fellow touch you, or you will go away richer
than you came. But here comes the Bulgarian
with the low fever."

This time the crowd did not divide; but
Grimani, led by a little Albanian (in for stealing
a watch), brought us forward, followed by the
seething scum of the crowd, to the dark door
of one of the stable-like sheds.

We waited, but no one came. There was
much talking among the prisoners. At last a
pert, effeminate-looking Cephalonian man, in for
"nothing"—the usual crime in prisons—was
pushed forward as spokesman, and said that
Balashan was too ill to come down, he was
upstairs in one of the top rooms; would we go up?

Grimani made a step forward.

"Don't you go," said the doctor, slapping his