After a short repose I prepared to leave her, that I might endeavour to accomplish her wish. In the meantime we were joined by Clara, whose pallid cheek and scared look showed the deep impression grief had made on her young mind. She seemed to be full of something to which she could not give words; but, seizing an opportunity afforded by Perdita’s absence, she preferred to me an earnest prayer, that I would take her within view of the gate at which her father had entered Constantinople. She promised to commit no extravagance, to be docile, and immediately to return. I could not refuse; for Clara was not an ordinary child; her sensibility and intelligence seemed already to have endowed her with the rights of womanhood. With her therefore, before me on my horse, attended only by the servant who was to re-conduct her, we rode to the Top Kapou. We found a party of soldiers gathered round it. They were listening. “They are human cries,” said one: “More like the howling of a dog,” replied another; and again they bent to catch the sound of regular distant moans, which issued from the precincts of the ruined city.