After a short repose I prepared to leave her, that I might endeavour to accomplish her wish.  In the mean time we were joined by Clara, whose pallid cheek and scared look shewed 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.  “That, Clara,” I said, “is the gate, that the street which yestermorn your father rode up.”  Whatever Clara’s intention had been in asking to be brought hither, it was balked by the presence of the soldiers.  With earnest gaze she looked on the labyrinth of smoking piles which had been a city, and then expressed her readiness to return home.  At this moment a melancholy howl struck on our ears; it was repeated; “Hark!” cried Clara, “he is there; that is Florio, my father’s dog.”  It seemed to me impossible that she could recognise the sound, but she persisted in her assertion till she gained credit with the crowd about.  At least it would be a benevolent action to rescue the sufferer, whether human or brute, from the desolation of the town; so, sending Clara back to her home, I again entered Constantinople.  Encouraged by the impunity attendant on my former visit, several soldiers who had made a part of Raymond’s body guard, who had loved him, and sincerely mourned his loss, accompanied me.

It is impossible to conjecture the strange enchainment of events which restored the lifeless form of my friend to our hands.  In that part of the town where the fire had most raged the night before, and which now lay quenched, black and cold, the dying dog of Raymond crouched beside the mutilated form of its lord.  At such a time sorrow has no voice; affliction, tamed by it is very vehemence, is mute.  The poor animal recognised me, licked my hand, crept close to its lord, and died.  He had been evidently thrown from his horse by some falling ruin, which had crushed his head, and defaced his whole person.  I bent over the body, and took in my hand the edge of his cloak, less altered in appearance than the human frame it clothed.  I pressed it to my lips, while the rough soldiers gathered around, mourning over this worthiest prey of death, as if regret and endless