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and tell of what they are able to grasp and what they are able to transform into legend. Anything else passes them by without deeper trace, with the dumb indifference of nameless natural phenomena, which do not touch the imagination or remain in the memory. This hard and long building process was for them a foreign task undertaken at another's expense. Only when, as the fruit of this effort, the great bridge arose, men began to remember details and to embroider the creation of a real, skilfully built and lasting bridge with fabulous tales which they well knew how to weave and to remember.

III
    In the spring of that year when the Vezir had made his decision to build, his men arrived in the town to prepare everything necessary for the construction work on the bridge. There were many of them, with horses, carts, various tools and tents. All this excited fear and apprehension in the little town and the surrounding villages, especially among the Christians.
    At the head of this group was Abidaga, who was responsible to the Vezir for building the bridge; with him was the mason, Tosun Effendi. (There had already been tales about this Abidaga, saying that he was a man who stopped at nothing, harsh and pitiless beyond measure.) As soon as they had settled in their tents below Mejdan, Abidaga summoned the local leaders and all the principal Turks for a discussion. But there was not much of a discussion, for only one man spoke and he was Abidaga. Those who had been summoned 1  saw a powerfully built man, with green eyes and an unhealthy reddish face, dressed in rich Stambul clothes, with a reddish beard and wonderfully upturned moustaches in the Magyar fashion. The speech which this violent man delivered to the notables astonished them even more than his appearance: 'It is more than likely that you have heard tales about me even before I came here and I know without asking that those tales could not have been pleasant or favourable. Probably you have heard that I demand work and obedience from everyone, and that I will beat and kill anyone who does not work as he should and does not obey without argument; that I do not know the meaning of "I cannot" or "There isn't any", that wherever I am heads will roll at the slightest word, and that in short I am a bloodthirsty and hard man. I want to tell you that those tales are neither imaginary nor exaggerated. Under my linden tree there is no shade. I have won this reputation over long years of service in which I have devotedly carried out the orders of the Grand Vezir. I trust in God that I shall carry out this work for which I was sent and when at the completion of the work I go hence, I hope that even harsher and darker tales will go before
    me than those which have already reached you.'
    After this unusual introduction to which all listened in silence and with downcast eyes, Abidaga explained that it was a matter of a building of great importance, such as did not exist even in richer lands, that the work would last five, perhaps six, years, but that the Vezir's will would be carried out to the fineness of a hair and punctual to a minute. Then he laid down his first requirements and what he therefore expected from the local Turks and demanded from the  rayah— the Christian serfs.
    Beside him sat Tosun Effendi, a small, pale, yellowish renegade, born in the Greek islands, a mason who had built many of Mehmed Pasha's bequests in Stambul. He remained quiet and indifferent, as if he were not hearing or did not understand Abidaga's speech. He gazed at his hands and only looked up from time to time. Then they could see his big black eyes, beautiful and short-sighted eyes with a velvety sheen, the eyes of a man who only looks to his work and does not see, does not feel and does not understand anything else in life or in the world.
    The notables filed out of the small stuffy tent, troubled and downcast. They felt as if they were sweating under their new ceremonial clothes and each one of them