"You have leave to try them."

The man arose, and looked at the bystanders, but they turned away.

"A hundred noumiae for two willing hands!" he shouted.

There was no reply. "If not for the money, then in honor of the noble lady who has feasted you and your wives and children."

A voice answered out of the throng: "Here am I!" and presently the hamari appeared with the bear behind him.

"Here," he said, "take care of Joqard for me. I will row in the sick man's place, and"--

The remainder of the sentence was lost in an outburst of gibing--and laughter. Finally the Princess asked the rowers if they were satisfied with the volunteer.

They surveyed him doubtfully.

"Art thou an oarsman?" one of them asked.

"There is not a better on the Bosphorus. And I will prove it. Here, some of you--take the beast off my hands. Fear not, friend, Joqard's worst growl is inoffensive as thunder without lightning. That's a good man."

And with the words the hamari released the leading strap, sprang into the boat, and without giving time for protest or remonstrance, threw off his jacket and sandals, tucked up his shirt-sleeves, and dropped into the vacant fifth seat. The dexterity with which he then unshipped the oars and took them in hand measurably quieted the associates thus audaciously adopted; his action was a kind of certificate that the right man had been sent them.

"Believe in me," he said, in a low tone. "I have the two qualities which will bring us home winners--skill and endurance." Then he spoke to the Princess: "Noble lady, have I your consent to make a proclamation?"

The manner of the request was singularly deferential. Sergius observed the change, and took a closer look at him while the Princess was giving the permission.

Standing upon the seat, the hamari raised his voice: "Ho, here--there-- every one!" and drawing a purse from his bosom, he waved it overhead, with a louder shout, "See!--a hundred noumiae, and not all copper either. Piece against piece weighed or counted, I put them in wager! Speak one or all. Who dares the chance?"

Takers of the offer not appearing on the shore, he shook the purse at his competitors.

"If we are not Christians," he said to them, "we are oarsmen and not afraid. See--I stake this purse--if you win, it is yours."

They only gaped at him.

He put the purse back slowly, and recounting the several towns of his opponents by their proper names in Greek, he cried: "Buyukdere, Therapia, Stenia, Bebek, Balta-Liman, Yenimahale--your women will sing you low to-night!" Then to the Princess: "Allow us now to take our place seventh on the left."

The bystanders were in a maze. Had they been served with a mess of brag, or was the fellow really capable? One thing was clear--the interest in the race had taken a rise perceptible in the judge's stand not less than on the crowded shore.

The four Gypsies, on their part, were content with the volunteer. In fact, they were more than satisfied when he said to them, as their vessel turned into position:

"Now, comrades, be governed by me; and besides the prize, if we win, you shall have my purse to divide amongst you man and man. Is it agreed?" And they answered, foreman and all, yes. "Very well," he returned. "Do you watch, and get the time and force from me. Now for the signal."

The Princess sent the starting flag to the top of the pole, and the boats were off together. A great shout went up from the spectators--a shout of men mingled with the screams of women to whom a hurrah or cheer of any kind appears impossible.

To warm the blood, there is nothing after all like the plaudits of a multitude looking on and mightily concerned. This was now noticeable. The eyes of all the rowers enlarged; their teeth set hard; the arteries of the neck swelled; and even in their tension the muscles of the arms quivered.

A much better arrangement would have been to allow the passage of the racers broadside to the shore; for then the shiftings of position, and the strategies resorted to would have been plain to the beholders; as it was, each foreshortened vessel soon became to them a black body, with but a man and one pair of oars in motion; and sometimes provokingly indistinguishable, the banderoles blew backward squarely in a line with the direction of the movement. Then the friends on land gave over exercising their throats; finally drawn down to the water's edge, and pressing on each other, they steadied and welded into a mass, like a wall.

Once there was a general shout. Gradually the boats had lost the formation of the start, and falling in behind each other, assumed an order comparable to a string. While this change was going on, a breeze unusually strong blew from the south, bringing every flag into view at the same time: when it was perceived that the red was in the lead. Forthwith the clansmen of Stenia united in a triumphant yell, followed immediately, however, by another yet louder. It was discovered, thanks to the same breeze, that the black banderole of the Gypsies was the last of the seven. Then even those who had been most impressed by the bravado of the hamari, surrendered themselves to laughter and sarcasm.

"See the infidels!" "They had better be at home taking care of their kettles and goats!" "Turn the seven twins into a cathedral, will they? The devil will turn them into porpoises first!" "Where is the hamari now--where? By St. Michael, the father of fishermen, he is finding what it is to have more noumiae than brains! Ha, ha, ha!"

Nevertheless the coolest of the thirty-five men then scudding the slippery waterway was the hamari--he had started the coolest--he was the coolest now.

For a half mile he allowed his crew to do their best, and with them he had done his best. The effort sufficed to carry them to the front, where he next satisfied himself they could stay, if they had the endurance. He called to them:

"Well done, comrades! The prize and the money are yours! But ease up a little. Let them pass. We will catch them again at the turn. Keep your eyes on me."

Insensibly he lessened the dip and reach of his oars; at last, as the thousands on the Therapian shore would have had it, the Gypsy racer was the hinderling of the pack. Afterwards there were but trifling changes of position until the terminal galley was reached.

By a rule of the race, the contestants were required to turn the galley, keeping it on the right; and it was a great advantage to be a clear first there, since the fortunate party could then make the round unhindered and in the least space. The struggle for the point began quite a quarter of a mile away. Each crew applied itself to quickening the speed--every oar dipped deeper, and swept a wider span;--on a little, and the keepers of the galley could hear the half groan, half grunt with which the coming toilers relieved the extra exertion now demanded of them;--yet later, they saw them spring to their feet, reach far back, and finish the long deep draw by falling, or rather toppling backward to their seats.

Only the hamari eschewed the resort for the present. He cast a look forward, and said quickly: "Attend, comrades!" Thereupon he added weight to his left delivery, altering the course to an angle which, if pursued, must widen the circle around the galley instead of contracting it.

On nearing the goal the rush of the boats grew fiercer; each foreman, considering it honor lost, if not a fatal mischance, did he fail to be first at the turning-point, persisted in driving straight forward--a madness which the furious yelling of the people on the marker's deck intensified. This was exactly what the hamari had foreseen. When the turn began five of the opposing vessels ran into each other. The boil and splash of water, breaking of oars, splintering of boatsides; the infuriate cries, oaths, and blind striving of the rowers, some intent on getting through at all hazards, some turned combatants, striking or parrying with their heavy oaken blades; the sound of blows on breaking heads; plunges into the foaming brine; blood trickling down faces and necks, and reddening naked arms--such was the catastrophe seen in its details from the overhanging gunwale of the galley. And while it went on, the worse than confused mass drifted away from the ship's side, leaving a clear space through which, with the first shout heard from him during the race, the hamari urged his crew, and rounded the goal.

On the far Therapian shore the multitude were silent. They could dimly see every incident at the turn--the collision, fighting, and manifold mishaps, and the confounding of the banderoles. Then the Stenia colors flashed round the galley, with the black behind it a close second.

"Is that the hamari's boat next the leader?"

Thus the Princess, and upon the answer, she added: "It looks as if the Holy One might find servants among the irreclaimables in the valley."

Had the Gypsies at last a partisan?

The two rivals were now clear of the galley. For a time there was but one cry heard--"Stenia! Stenia!" The five oarsmen of that charming town had been carefully selected; they were vigorous, skilful, and had a chief well-balanced in judgment. The race seemed theirs. Suddenly--it was when the homestretch was about half covered--the black flag rushed past them.

Then the life went out of the multitude. "St. Peter is dead!" they cried--"St. Peter is dead! It is nothing to be a Greek now!" and they hung their heads, refusing to be comforted.

The Gypsies came in first; and amidst the profoundest silence, they dropped their oars with a triumphant crash on the marble revetment. The hamari wiped the sweat from his face, and put on his jacket and sandals; pausing then to toss his purse to the foreman, and say: "Take it in welcome, my friends. I am content with my share of the victory," he stepped ashore. In front of the judge's stand, he knelt, and said: "Should there be a dispute touching the prize, O Princess, be a witness unto thyself. Thine eyes have seen the going and the coming; and if the