The Eye of Zeitoon | Page 6

burner
on the floor, to say that all that medley of sounds and smells is not good.
It is very good indeed, only he who is privileged must understand, or
else the spell is mere confusion.
The cooking box was hardly a success, because bright eyes watching
through the open door made us nervously amateurish. The Zeitoonli
arrived true to his threat on the stroke of the half-hour, and we could
not shut the door in his face because of the fumes of food and kerosene.
(Two of the eggs, like us, were travelers and had been in more than one
bazaar.)
But we did not invite him inside until our meal was finished, and then

we graciously permitted him to go for water wherewith to wash up. He
strode back and forth on the balcony, treading ruthlessly on prayer-mats
(for the Moslem prays in public like the Pharisees of old).
"Myself I am Christian," he said, spitting over the rail, and sitting down
again to watch us. We accepted the remark with reservations.
When we asked him in at last, and we had driven out the flies with
flapping towels, be closed the door and squatted down with his back to
it, we two facing him in our canvas-backed easy chairs. He refused the
"genuine Turkish" coffee that Will stewed over the primus. Will drank
the beastly stuff, of course, to keep himself in countenance, and I did
not care to go back on a friend before a foreigner, but I envied the man
from Zeitoon his liberty of choice.
"Why do they call you the Eye of Zeitoon?" I asked, when time enough
had elapsed to preclude his imagining that we regarded him seriously.
One has to be careful about beginnings in the Near East, even as
elsewhere.
"I keep watch!" he answered proudly, but also with a deeply-grounded
consciousness of cunning. There were moments when I felt such strong
repugnance for the man that I itched to open the door and thrust him
through--other moments when compassion for him urged me to offer
money--food--influence--anything. The second emotion fought all the
while against the first, and I found out afterward it had been the same
with Will.
"Why should Zeitoon need such special watching?" I demanded. "How
do you watch? Against whom? Why?"
He laughed with a pair of lawless eyes, and showed his yellow teeth.
"Ha! Shall I speak of Zeitoon? This, then: the Turks never conquered it!
They came once and built a fort on the opposite mountain-side, with
guns to overawe us all. We took their fort by storm! We threw their
cannon down a thousand feet into the bed of the torrent, and there they
lie to-day! We took prisoner as many of their Arab zaptiehs as still
were living--aye, they even brought Arabs against us--poor fools who
had not yet heard of Zeitoon's defenders! Then we came down to the
plains for a little vengeance, leaving the Arabs for our wives to guard.
They are women of spirit, the Zeitoonli wives!
"Word reached Zeitoon presently that we were being hard pressed on
the plains. It was told to the Zeitoonli wives that they might arrange to

have pursuit called off from us by surrendering those Arab prisoners.
They answered that Zeitoon-fashion. How? I will tell. There is a bridge
of wood, flung over across the mountain torrent, five hundred feet
above the water, spanning from crag to crag. Those Zeitoonli wives of
ours bound the Arab prisoners hand and foot. They brought them out
along the bridge. They threw them over one at a time, each man
looking on until his turn came. That was the answer of the brave
Zeitoonli wives!"
"And you on the plains?"
"Ah! It takes better than Osmanli to conquer the men of Zeitoon!" he
gave the Turks their own names for themselves with the air of a brave
fighting man conceding his opponent points. "We heard what our wives
had done. We were encouraged. We prevailed! We fell back to-ward
our mountain and prevailed! There in Zeitoon we have
weapons--numbers--advantage of position, for no roads come near
Zeitoon that an araba, or a gun, or anything on wheels can use. The
only thing we fear is treachery, leading to surprise in overwhelming
force. And against these I keep watch!"
"Why should you tell us all this?" demanded Will.
"How do you know we are not agents of the Turkish government?"
He laughed outright, throwing out both hands toward us. "Eenglis
sportmen!" he said simply.
"What's that got to do with it?" Will retorted. He has the unaccountable
American dislike of being mistaken for an Englishman, but long ago
gave up arguing the point, since foreigners refuse, as a rule, to see the
sacred difference.
"I am, too, sportman. At