The Eye of Zeitoon | Page 8

a very good guide. You shall pay me handsomely."
"Sure, we'll ante up like foreigners. But why do you make the proposal?

What's behind it?"
"I never saw you until this afternoon. You are Eenglis sportmen. I can
show good sport. You shall pay me. Could it be simpler?"
It seemed to me we had been within an ace of discovery, but the man's
mind had closed again against us in obedience to some racial or
religious instinct outside our comprehension. He had been on the verge
of taking us into confidence.
"Let the sportmen think it over," he said, getting up. "Jannam! (My
soul!) Effendi, when I was a younger man none could have made me
half such a sportmanlike proposal without an answer on the instant! A
man fit to strike the highway with his foot should be a judge of men! I
have judged you fit to be invited! Now you judge me--the Eye of
Zeitoon!"
"What is your real name?"
"I have none--or many, which is the same thing! I did not ask your
names; they are your own affair!"
He stood with his hand on the door, not irresolute, but taking one last
look at us and our belongings.
"I wish you comfortable sleep, and long lives, effendim!" he said then,
and swung himself out, closing the door behind him with an air of
having honored us, not we him particularly. And after he had gone we
were not at all sure that summary of the situation was not right.
We lay awake on our cots until long after midnight, hazarding guesses
about him. Whatever else he had done he had thoroughly aroused our
curiosity.
"If you want my opinion that's all he was after anyway!" said Will,
dropping his last cigarette-end on the floor and flattening it with his
slipper.
"Cut the cackle, and let's sleep!"
We fell asleep at last amid the noise of wild carousing; for the
proprietor of the Yeni Khan, although a Turk, and therefore himself
presumably abstemious, was not above dispensing at a price mastika
that the Greeks get drunk on, and the viler raki, with which Georgians,
Circassians, Albanians, and even the less religious Turks woo
imagination or forgetfulness.
There was knife-fighting as well as carousal before dawn, to judge by
the cat-and-dog-fight swearing in and out among the camel pickets and

the wheels of arabas. But that was the business of the men who fought,
and no one interfered.

Chapter Two
"How did sunshine get into the garden? By whose leave came the
wind?"
A TIME AND TIMES AND HALF A TIME
When Cydnus bore the Taurus snows To sweeten Cleopatra's keels,
And rippled in the breeze that sings >From Kara Dagh, where leafy
wings Of flowers fall and gloaming steals The colors of the blowing
rose, Old were the wharves and woods and ways-- Older the tale of
steel and fire, Involved intrigue, envenomed plan, Man marketing his
brother man By dread duress to glut desire. No peace was in those
olden days. Hope like the gorgeous rose sun-warmed Blossomed and
blew away and died, Till gentleness had ceased to be And Tarsus knew
no chivalry Could live an hour by Cydnus' side Where all the heirs of
evil swarmed. And yet--with every swelling spring Each pollen-scented
zephyr's breath Repeats the patient news to ears Made dull by dreams
of loveless years, "It is of life, and not of death That ye shall hear the
Cydnus sing!"
We awoke amid sounds unexplainable. Most of the Moslems had
finished their noisy ritual ablutions, and at dawn we had been dimly
conscious of the strings of camels, mules and donkeys jingling out
under the arch beneath us. Yet there was a great din from the courtyard
of wild hoofs thumping on the dung, and of scurrying feet as if a
mile-long caravan were practising formations.
So we went out to yawn, and remained, oblivious of everything but the
cause of all the noise, we leaning with elbows on the wooden rail, and
she laughing up at us at intervals.
The six Zingarri, or gipsies, had pitched their tent in the very middle of
the yard, ambitious above all other considerations to keep away from
walls. It was a big, low, black affair supported on short poles, and
subdivided by them into several compartments. One could see
unshapely bulges where women did the housekeeping within.
But the woman who held us spell-bound cared nothing for Turkish
custom --a girl not more than seventeen years old at the boldest guess.

She was breaking a gray stallion in the yard, sitting the frenzied beast
without a saddle and doing whatever she liked with him, except that his
heels made free of the air, and he went from point to point whichever
end up