Preface

Thousands of miles to the westward, a little boy of eight gazed out
across the ruffled waters of the mill pond at Neeland's Mills, and
wondered whether the ocean might not look that way.

And, wondering, with the salt sea effervescence working in his
inland-born body, he fitted a cork to his fishing line and flung the
baited hook far out across the ripples. Then he seated himself on the
parapet of the stone bridge and waited for monsters of the deep to
come.

* * * * *

And again, off Seraglio Point, men were rowing in a boat; and a corded
sack lay in the stern, horridly and limply heavy.

There was also a box lying in the boat, oddly bound and clamped with
metal which glistened like silver under the Eastern stars when the
waves of the Bosporus dashed high, and the flying scud rained down on
box and sack and the red-capped rowers.

* * * * *

In Petrograd a little girl of twelve was learning to eat other things
than sour milk and cheese; learning to ride otherwise than like a
demon on a Cossack saddle; learning deportment, too, and languages,
and social graces and the fine arts. And, most thoroughly of all, the
little girl was learning how deathless should be her hatred for the
Turkish Empire and all its works; and how only less perfect than our
Lord in Paradise was the Czar on his throne amid that earthly paradise
known as "All the Russias."